Over a year ago Fred Wilson wrote about the need for a Twitter events firehose – a place where users could input a handful of keywords collectively referred to as an ‘event’, which could be used to monitor current news as it happens in near real-time. Tomorrow morning, he’ll get his wish when Glam Media launches a new service called Tinker to the public.
As its popularity has skyrocketed, Twitter has quickly become an indispensable tool for nearly any event, ranging from breaking news stories like the Mumbai terrorist attacks to the broadcast of the most recent episode of Dancing With The Stars. Major earthquakes are often reported by hundreds of Twitter users a matter of seconds after they’ve occurred.
Most people rely on Twitter Search and hashtags to keep tabs on these events, but these aren’t particularly efficient or user friendly. There have been a number of sites that have offered one-off Twitter pages for events, like the Presidential election and The Oscars. These are great, but there still hasn’t been an easy way to create similar pages for smaller events or breaking news stories. Tinker solves this problem, allowing users to build these pages in seconds. And it’s very well done, with a polished intuitive interface that may well make the site the de facto standard for Twitter events. → Read More
Tonight music-streaming service Lala will be rolling out a number of improvements to its homepage and integrated music player. While the site has had a clean feel since its relaunch last October, it has also been a bit spartan – users had to navigate to various links to find their playlists and songs, and while it looked good it wasn’t as functional as it could have been.
The redesign builds on the site’s persistent music player, which sits at the top of the browser window no matter where on Lala’s site they go. Users can now view a pulldown-menu with a list of songs, and there’s a similar pull down menu for playlists.
Another new addition is the ‘Mix’ button, which allows users to generate a list of similar songs to the one they’re current playing (it is similar to the Genius feature found on iTunes). The feature is great for exploring new songs, allowing users to get exposure to a variety of music they haven’t heard while still retaining control over what they’d like to hear next (radio services like Pandora, while great for discovery, can still be frustrating because they only allow users to skip a limited number of songs). → Read More
Antec, perhaps the most popular PC case maker around, has released a couple cases which are actually quite tempting. I see a lot of gaudy cases about, but these, particularly the P183, are understated and classy. They look as if they have plenty of room, too, although it isn’t as adventurous as Corsair’s debut case. → Read More
The digital encyclopedia that was, ladies and gentlemen. I remember thinking how obsolete that first CD set made my Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedia — and yet, 15 years later, Encarta is going to a better place and I still have the Funk & Wagnall’s, which combined with Wikipedia encompasses the whole of human knowledge. The well-meaning but perennially obsolete virtual encyclopedia will die the true death before the end of the year. Progress, thou comest at too high a price. → Read More
The Vestalife Butterfly is an $80 iPod dock with no remote control and so-so sound quality. The build quality is okay, but the whole getup looks like it should be hanging over a baby’s crib. If it cost $30 or $40 it’d be a whole different story, but at $80 this one’s truly for butterfly enthusiasts and family members of Vestalife employees only. → Read More
As far as we can tell, the guy who’s going to be taking over MySpace along with the rest of News Corp.’s digital assets doesn’t actually use the site itself. We cannot locate a MySpace profile for Jonathan Miller, who will shortly become the CEO of Digital Media for News Corp.
We’re big believers in company executives eating their own dog food, and more often than not they do. But MySpace is a different story – every once in a while they announce new executives who don’t have a MySpace page at all. It’s always fixed promptly, but it’s a bit of an embarrassment.
News Corp., MySpace and Miller all either refused to comment or haven’t responded to our inquiries.
My guess is the MySpace team will be creating one for Miller shortly, assuming he doesn’t in fact have one. He could have an anonymous profile, but from what we’ve heard he doesn’t. We love Miller and think he’s an awesome choice for the huge job he’s about to take on. And now’s the time for him to start using MySpace. → Read More
In a world where everything is being jammed into 140 characters or less, shorter is better. That goes double (or is it half?) for lengthy URLs. So-called URL shortening services are increasingly becoming indispensable to anyone who uses Twitter. It is the only practical way to share links on the service.
Today, one of these URL shortening services, bit.ly, raised $2 million, sparking the question: How much are these things actually worth? Nobody really knows.
But here is some fun math. Assuming bit.ly sold 20 percent of its shares to its new investors (the O’Reilly Alpha Tech Fund, Mitch Kapor, and Howard Lindzon), that would imply an $8 million pre-money valuation ($10 million post-money). Its market share of shortened links, as calculated by Tweetmeme, is only 13 percent. The biggest URL shortner out there is actually TinyURL, which commands a 75 percent share. So by that metric, if bit.ly is worth $8 million, TinyURL should be worth at least $46 million (8/13 X 75 = 46.15). Yes, I am making up these numbers, just like the investors do.
But wait. Bit.ly seems to be shooting up like a rocket, while TinyURL may have plateaued. Why is bit.ly growing so much faster? One big reason is because it creates even shorter URLs than TinyURL does by about five characters (http://bit.ly/ versus http://tinyurl.com/). Don’t laugh. Every character counts. Bit.ly also offers better analytics and tracking tools on the backend. → Read More
I’m not the biggest “download the source and compile” person out there, but if you are, you may have been following Google’s ongoing browser experiment as it rockets through release numbers. It’s not exactly available for macs just yet, but you can compile it and make it go as a sort of pre-Alpha program. It should have all the features and optimizations of every other build, so don’t worry about being behind your Windows brothers. → Read More
Canon may have decided to take the digital recording to the next level. There’s been some pretty amazing stuff being done with the Canon 5D mkII, and there have been some leaks about where they might be going with this.
Keep in mind, this a rumor only and unconfirmed, it could very easily be a fanboy hoax. But if the rumor is true, Canon is working on a pro-level video camera using their 1x APS-C CMOS sensor that will let them capture up to 120 full frames per second at 12.1 megapixels. → Read More
The stock market has been a wild ride the past 12 months. If you don’t feel sick already, you can actually turn the ups and downs of the stock market into a virtual roller coaster. Ziconic, the developers of AirCoaster 3D, a high speed 3D roller coaster app for the iPhone, has turned the Dow Jones and Apple stock charts into roller coaster tracks that users can download and ride.
The steep decline of the Dow Jones index makes for an exhilarating ride . But Apple’s more volatile stock makes for an even more thrilling up-and-down roller coaster track. The AirCoaster 3D, which costs $0.99, lets you design your own tracks as well. (In fact, the Dow Jones and Apple tracks don’t come with the app, you have to download them from the community tracks tab). Which stock chart would be the most fun to ride? One rule of thumb: the fun of the roller coaster ride is in inverse proportion to the fun of owning the stock.
The video of the Dow Jones ride is after the jump: → Read More
We figured it was just a rumor, but Sony just got back to us and they’ve denied all rumors surrounding a price drop on the PS3. → Read More
You asked for it. Actually, you asked for girls washing cars. But you have to understand that I live in Seattle and this year when it hasn’t been raining, it’s been hailing. So just be satisfied that it’s not entirely bearded guys high-fiving each other — although I threw in a little of that for those of you who secretly liked it. It’s a sort of slow-motion smorgasbord. → Read More
I use a DSLR and I love it, and while I appreciate what point-and-shoots do, I’ve never really wanted one. This is partly due to the superior picture-taking ability of a DSLR, but mostly it’s other cameras’ unimaginative feature lists. The latest cameras boast huge numbers of features which I would never use (smile shutter? more megapixels on a tiny sensor?), and stubbornly refuse to include any that I would. Imagine my delight, then, upon finding a camera which not only fulfills my expectations of a point-and-shoot, but also takes steps toward being a such a useful imaging device that any photographer or cinematographer would be proud to own one. At the risk of sounding dramatic, the Casio Exilim EX-FC100 is such a camera. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the after the personal computer and the smartphone, the EX-FC100 is the most versatile piece of electronics I’ve ever used. → Read More
To all 1 million or so Netflix subscribers who’ve opted for Blu-ray discs, you’re in for another price hike in the coming weeks. What started as a $1 surcharge last September will eventually amount to an increase that’s triple or quadruple what you’re paying now for your online DVD rental service. Before steam starts blowing out of your ears let’s see what that increase actually amounts to. → Read More
So I beat Resident Evil 5 late last night, and in addition to liking the game a whole lot more than I initially did—I till think the inventory system is stupid is as stupid does—I have come to the conclusion that Capcom is staffed with a bunch of crazy persons. Let’s examine the final level, shall we? → Read More
It’s definitely not the first time we’ve seen the Novatel MiFi, or even the second – but they can keep cranking these things out in all sorts of different flavors and we wouldn’t mind a bit. A few weeks back, we found out that Sprint would be getting a MiFi of their own sometime in the next 3 months, and this latest leak indicates that Verizon will be getting one as well. No date is mentioned – but with CTIA 09 but a night or two away, we’d wager that an announcement is looming. → Read More
Fear not, Wii users who dabble in the dark arts of “homebrew,” Waninkoko has your back. This here is a video demonstrating his new application that lets you run hombebrew software off a USB device. The video is in some strange, foreign language, but it otherwise checks out. → Read More
Microsoft is preparing to shut down Encarta, the digital encyclopedia it first launched in 1993 as a direct competitor to old reference standbys like Encyclopedia Britannica. The encyclopedia, which for years was based on optical media and eventually made its way to the web too, grew quickly in the mid to late 90′s as a reference guide that was more convenient than book-based encyclopedias and was available for a tiny fraction of the price. According to its FAQ, Encarta’s web sites will be discontinued on October 31, 2009 (Except for Japan, which has until December 31, 2009). Microsoft will also stop selling the Encarta products by June.
From the FAQ:
Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.
Microsoft’s vision is that everyone around the world needs to have access to quality education, and we believe that we can use what we’ve learned and assets we’ve accrued with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions. In doing so, we feel strongly that we are making the right investments that will help make our vision a reality.
Oh, look, a CrunchDeal! Buy.com has the Maxtor One Touch 4, a TB external hard drive, for $99. That’s around a $130 savings. → Read More
