Netvibes, the site that lets users customize their homepages with a variety of widgets, has partnered with Rambler.ru to bring its widgets to the massive Russian web portal. Rambler is the Yahoo of Russia, with an estimated 40 million users and 3 billion monthly pageviews. The deal is being described as “multi-year” and worth “multi-millions”, but further details haven’t been disclosed. Netvibes availability on Rambler.ru is expected to begin in November.
This marks the first time Netvibes has licensed its platform for installation and distribution to an independent third party, and probably won’t be the last. In order to stay competitive with other widget hubs like iGoogle, Netvibes would do well to spur its growth by offering its widgets to other region-specific portals (that said, Netvibes has been doing well, with a reported 500 million widgets served montly). According to the press release, the Rambler homepage will include Google Search, Blinx video search, and a number of Russian services like Price.ru. → Read More
Sugar Inc, the company behind a network of popular women-focused blogs that includes PopSugar, is announcing two major releases tonight that take advantage of its fashion-hungry userbase. The first, dubbed PopSugar’s CelebStyle, is positioning itself as an IMDB for style, analyzing outfits from many of television’s most popular shows. Sugar Inc is also announcing a new ShopStyle API, which gives developers access to the site’s massive database of clothing and accessories which can be used in any variety of applications. Here’s a breakdown of both announcements: → Read More
There doesn’t appear to have been an official announcement, but Twitter has begun soliciting spam reports to a “spam” user account via direct messages.
Are you a victim of Twitter spam? Just begin following @spam and send it a direct message with the username of your spammer. As the following email autoresponse to spam reporters instructs, you can send these direct messages from your mobile phone or opt for a public tweet as well: → Read More
What you do know will hurt you. As a long-time lover of larger than life watches, I was pleased when Steinhart nee Debaufre released a line of watches to rival Bell & Ross’ attempts at recreating old-timey airplane dial. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Bell & Ross watches are obscenely huge and obscenely expensive so to find a watch that mimics – but does not totally copy – the B&R style for not much money excited that bargain-hunting watch-lover in me. Sadly, however, I think this taste of paradise will make the average watch-lover desire a B&R even more, a sad state of affairs for someone who is trying to avoid spending $5 grand or more on a stinking watch. → Read More
eBay UK has today put three quarters of their UK staff on notice for redundancy, according to my sources. Although a spokesperson for eBay UK, which employs around 100 people, told The Times that “some people’s roles are at risk of redundancy” and would not say how many jobs or which departments are most at risk, my sources paint a black picture of what’s going on inside the UK office. The move came today as eBay layed off 1,000 staff globally, 10% of its workforce. The restructuring will cost around $70 million to $80 million. At the same time it is buying Denmark’s DBA for $380 million and Amazon-funded BillMeLater for $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in outstanding options. dba.dk is Denmarks’ leading classifieds site and considered the “eBay of Denmark” for 2.1 billion Kroner, or about $383 million. The site is owned by Blue Avis, a free newspaper with a circulation of around 500,000 per week. The company has 225 employees. eBay has also bought BillMeLater, a service that let’s ecommerce partners issue instant credit to buyers. → Read More
Last week Cliffy B made a few remarks about why GoW2 wouldn’t be ported over to the PC and his argument was based two things: piracy and the making games for open systems was a pain. Shacknews recently rapped with Cliffy after a GoW 2 event and went a bit further into the subject. Check it out after the jump. → Read More
As Research in Motion prepares to open its Blackberry Application Center to answer the iPhone’s App Store, an unaffiliated startup called the BerryStore has already launched a competing app store for Blackberry Apps. What makes it better than the official BlackBerry App Center (besides the name), is that apps in the BerryStore work across both old and new BlackBerries alike (not just the upcoming BlackBerry Storm), and across carriers. The BlackBerry App center, in contrast, is designed to be a carrier-specific store, with different apps for different carriers.
You can download the BerryStore as an app itself by visiting www.berrystore.com on your BlackBerry. (The App Center will require users to download apps through their Blackberry browsers, which is not the best experience). Already there are about 40 apps in the store, ranging from Loopt, 3Jam, and TwitterBerry to Obopay, Citysense, and Google Mobile. All of them are currently free, although the company plans on offering paid apps in the future. Developers can get more details about how to submit apps or the BerryStore here.
Below is a list of each app currently in the BerryStore with a short description: → Read More
Tomorrow Mozilla will launch a new geotagging project called Geode into Mozilla Labs that promises to leverage your physical location to enhance your overall browsing experience. More details will be provided in a post tomorrow, but this is what we know already: → Read More
The engineering behind lenses, especially zoom lenses, is astonishing in its precision and complexity. No time is this more apparent than when you can get a good look at what’s inside a lens. A FredMiranda forum member took apart a bum 17-85mm EFS Canon lens and found it to be full of glass, rings, and other wonderful things. If you cut a lens in half you get the inside picture, but this shows just how many bits are working together every time you twist the focus ring. [via Gizmodo] → Read More
As Research in Motion prepares to open its Blackberry Application Center to answer the iPhone’s App Store, an unaffiliated startup called the BerryStore has already launched a competing app store for Blackberry Apps. What makes it better than the official BlackBerry App Center (besides the name), is that apps in the BerryStore work across both old and new BlackBerries alike (not just the upcoming BlackBerry Storm), and across carriers. The BlackBerry App center, in contrast, is designed to be a carrier-specific store, with different apps for different carriers.
AYou can download the BerryStore as an app itself by visiting www.berrystore.com on your BlackBerry. (The App Center will require users to download apps through their Blackberry browsers, which is not the best experience). Already there are about 40 apps in the store, ranging from Loopt, 3Jam, and TwitterBerry to Obopay, Citysense, and Google Mobile. All of them are currently free, although the company plans on offering paid apps in the future. Developers can get more details about how to submit apps or the BerryStore here.
Below is a list of each app currently in the BerryStore with a short description: → Read More
The wait is over, netbook fans. MSI just announced that the U100 netbook is now available nationwide at Best Buy. The Intel Atom 1.6GHz equipped 10-inch netbook comes with 1GB of RAM, Windows XP Home Edition, a 120GB HDD, and weighs only 2.3lbs. It comes in black and white and starts at $399. I just checked Best Buy’s online store, but it doesn’t look like the U100 is available there yet. Update: The U100 netbooks will be available at Best Buy sometime this week. → Read More
As visionary as Will Wright is, I think Spore has been compromised by his commercial sensibilities — or those of Maxis’ marketers. An interesting article in this month’s Seed suggests that the game was originally less commercially viable than it is now, and the original vision was muddied somewhat by the need to reach a wide audience. Unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable. But this? Once again the expansion monster rears its ugly head. Not that we don’t expect it after the decade-long cavalcade of Sims expansions, but… really? Releasing a “Cute and Creepy creature parts” expansion a month after the game is released? Real classy. It’s almost as if the content was ready when the game shipped, but you decided to withhold it and sell it later for extra! I understand it’s a business, but when even Spore can lose its magic due to industry pressure, it’s a sad day indeed. → Read More
Ping.fm, a fairly new service that lets you update your status on several social networks at once, has signed a deal with the UK’s Spinvox whereby you can now update your status via a voice call. Ping.fm works on Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, LiveJournal, Tumblr, MySpace, Bebo and Friendster. It’s not unlike Socialthing, another an activity aggregator. There is also HelloTxt which has been around since September 2007 and also has a mobile version. But there’s a slight problem. Facebook has plans to allow you to update your status on other socnets, which would potentially kill Ping.fm and others like it for at least a large part of the market (though not all of course). That makes Ping.fm a feature, and the fact that Ping.fm is a project started by two guys in their spare time says a lot. So is this new Spinvox add-on of any real value? Does it make sense to call a number and suddenly update 30 social networks at once with “I’m on the train, looks like I’ll be late for that meeting” or similar? Christina Domecq, SpinVox co-founder and CEO says “Bloggers and other active social networkers are tired of being stuck in front of their computer screens, updating network after network to stay in touch with their friends.” But that doesn’t make sense to me – those guys are the mavens of this business – they actually love text input and, in my experience, can’t stand having to call people. They will even hunt and peck on a terrible iPhone keyboard and download the Twitterific iPhone app to avoid calling people. And as many have found, the real power of Twitter comes in turning it into a sort of ‘cloud conversation’. If I used Ping.fm to have one single, blasted-out conversation across all socnets that would pretty much destroy my network. And annoy my friends/followers. Adding voice just confuses that. And unfortunately SpinVox’s “sexiest” service is not its integration with social networks, but it’s voice to SMS service, which remains an utterly indispensible, though paid-for, add-on to your mobile. I can see Spinvox’s desire to extend the service into socnets, but it is a mere incremental add-on to the existing service. This is a bit of extra code, nothing more. But at least it makes for a smart distribution ploy – this is very cheap viral marketing. In fact, there’s going to be → Read More
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