Google recently invited people to make short movies about their Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome Shorts features a collection of short films about the browser. Below are some of the best of Google Chrome short videos we enjoyed.

Google and Motion Theory craft the first video for Chrome’s arrival.

The video game shows simplicity of Chrome’s clean user interface

Internet is full of nooks and crannies hiding technological mischief.

On the internet you can do things, but you need the tools.

What makes a good browser?

Read more about Fun, Google, Software, Tools

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Need free business cards featuring your Google Profile? Google has partnered with iPrint.com and they are giving away 10000 sets of 25 Google profile business cards totally free to show off your profile.

Matt McGee says that people logged into their Google accounts can visit their profile and see the offer. However, I logged into my Google profile, but saw no offer. Moreover, the url which he posted turned 404. Firstly I thought that was because the offer is available in US only. But I realized my profile was not public as yet. So first create and update your  Google Profile, and see how to represent yourself on Google products to other Google users.

So I set up my public profile here

and then created a short display url.

And behold! On top of my profile was the offer

That link points to http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards

And that page displays a sample business card like this

Each person can get 25 free business cards like this, with the Google home page, with your name in the search box and your Google Profile URL below in green. But remember this offer is available to U.S. continental street addresses only, so though my profile displayed the offer, I cannot use it.

Anyway for US people - after that you need to create a free iPrint.com account and confirm the information on the sample business card, fill in your shipping and email information and your personal Google profile business cards should come in 10-12 days!

Update: I checked what some people noticed -  if you add the trailing slash at the end of the url, it leads to 404 Profile Not Found (only after logging into your Google Account)

Use http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards

and NOT http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards/

Read more about Deals, Google

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

BuddyPress 1.0 is released and you can download this suite of WordPress plugins and themes, which promises to extend WordPress MU (multiuser) with a whole range of social networking features.

BuddyPress is a package built on top of WordPress which transforms it into a social network with profiles, friends, messaging, groups, and activity streams. The  BuddyPress plugins can be themed to match your own style.  All of the plugins can help you create a complete social network or you can use specific plugins to add special features to your blog network. It’s 100% GPL and Open Source.

You can test drive the BuddyPress demo site, which is powered by the latest version of the BuddyPress software. You can sign up and see how BuddyPress works. I signed up too and the demo application is amazing.

Download BuddyPress. BuddyPress 1.0 requires you have a functional running WordPress MU version 2.7.1 or greater. Read this setup guide to get started.

Read more about Blogging, WordPress

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

.tv is the official domain name from Tuvalu, and if you try to register .tv domain name at Godaddy, the alert box warns you that Tuvalu is sinking!

As a suggestion to why choose .TV, they remind potential domain name registrants about a sinking Tuvalu -  I am confused if they want people to register to support .tv, or they are warning us about what happens to .tv if Tuvalu happens to sink one day…

Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean. With a population of 11,992, it is the the third-least-populated independent country in the world. At just 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi) Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world.  At its highest, Tuvalu is only 4.5 m above sea level, and global warming threatens to sink this small island nation following  sea level rise caused by climate change. There are many reports suggesting this sinking threat.

So will .tv domain names continue to exist if Tuvalu sinks away?

Update: Apparently an old USA Today article says

VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin tells me that a defunct country’s Internet domain lives on. For instance, you can still find addresses on .su — the domain for the Soviet Union.

Anyway, as Galvin points out, Tuvalu would not necessarily cease to exist. Apparently, the laws of the sea say that a country is a country, even if underwater. Sopoaga has said in speeches, “Our sovereignty would not be threatened. Our claim would be maintained on this spot.”

Noticed via Wreck & Salvage

Read more about Domains, Events

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Microsoft has released the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), which is now available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Now Windows 7 is in final phase of development and getting ready for partners to develop new applications, device drivers and services.

Some of the cool new features to look out for are
1. Remote Media Streaming. Remote Internet access to home-based digital media libraries from another Windows 7-based PC outside the home.
2. Windows XP Mode. Utilizing Windows Virtual PC, allows Windows 7 users to run many Windows XP productivity applications, launched right from the Windows 7 desktop.
3. Windows Touch. Controlling the computer by touching a touch-enabled screen or monitor is a core Windows 7 user experience.

Download Windows 7 RC

So what are the minimum system requirements for Windows 7?
- 1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
- 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
- DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or higher driver

In case you are not TechNet or MSDN subscribers, but still interested in previewing Windows 7, the Windows 7 RC will be publicly available May 5 on the Microsoft Windows 7 site.

Note: Windows 7 Beta was available earlier for a limited time earlier till January 24, 2009. The Windows 7 Beta software will expire on August 1, 2009.

Read more about Microsoft, Software

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It only seems right that people blogging via Blogger would be able to take advantage of AdSense features for their blogs - both are Google products, after all. Now they can. Google has used their AdSense API to provide more built-in monetization options for its Blogger members.

Blogger users could already place AdSense ads in the body of their posts, but now with the addition of a “Monetize” tab in the control panel, placing and tracking AdSense ads should be much easier.

From Blogger Buzz:

“The current Monetize tab allows you to apply for an AdSense account (or link your Blogger blog to an existing AdSense account). You can then choose where to place ads on your blog, and once ads start appearing on your blog, review your earnings. We use the AdSense API to pull your live earnings data from your AdSense account, so now it’s easy to check how your revenues are doing without leaving the Blogger interface.”

If you’re a developer for a blog that runs over 100,000 site visitors a month, you can take advantage of Google’s Adsense API resources for your site. If you’d rather just pick up an AdSense account for your Blogger.com site, keep in mind that not every AdSense application will be approved. To check the eligibility requirements, visit Google’s Adsense Help Pages.

See our Google AdSense API Profile for more on the API.

Related ProgrammableWeb Resources

Google AdSense API Profile, 42 mashups

Yahoo has just released a major update to YQL, the Yahoo Query Language platform they first launched late last year as part of their Yahoo Open Strategy. YQL is a SQL-like programming interface to all Yahoo data that can also support non-Yahoo data as well (think of queries that look like: select id from flickr.photos.search where text=’car’). This week’s release adds a set of new features called Yahoo Execute which begin putting in place more pieces of a powerful cloud-based development platform.

As background, it helps to understand a bit about YQL. Their blog post announcing this new release gives a good, concise summary:

The Yahoo! Query Language lets you query, filter, and join data across any web data source or service on the web. Using our YQL web service, apps run faster with fewer lines of code and a smaller network footprint. YQL uses a SQL-like language because it is a familiar and intuitive method for developers to access data. YQL treats the entire web as a source of table data, enabling developers to select * from Internet.

Another way to look at it: if you consider Yahoo Pipes as the GUI-centric way to mashup data, YQL exists much closer to the programmer and code level.

As part of YQL, Yahoo also offers something called Open Data Tables (ODT), an extensible architecture for creating structured definitions of all sorts of online data, not just Yahoo data. This lets anyone make data YQL-accessible. There’s a growing community repository of these definitions over on Github with about 70 new ‘table definitions’ available there now for sources ranging from Yahoo to bit.ly to Zillow.

Now, with this week’s update, Yahoo builds on top of ODT via the “Execute” piece of the puzzle. Execute definitions let developers add arbitrary code that will run during the processing of any YQL statement. The code itself is server-side JavaScript with E4X (native XML support). Here’s a bit more on how this works:

With Execute, developers now have full control of how the data is fetched into YQL and how it’s presented back to the user. With Open Data Tables, developers can build tables that manipulate, change, and sign the URLs to access almost any protected content, allowing YQL access and combining data across a variety of different authenticated services such as Netflix or Twitter. Developers can call multiple services and data sources within Execute to join and mashup data however they desire, letting Yahoo! do the work rather than their applications. Data can be tweaked and manipulated into an optimal format for applications to consume.

This means developers can start writing server-side code on Yahoo’s infrastructure. Large scale joins and data manipulation can occur on Yahoo’s cloud, but the results can also can be integrated back as part of a developer’s app elsewhere. Or, with the Pipes YQL module, it can be integrated into Yahoo Pipes. For now the service provides read-only access to data and APIs, but it makes sense that they would add write capabilities before long.

As with other Yahoo platform services, as they’ve recently done with the BOSS search API, YQL may have both free and paid levels of access, with a reasonably high bar before hitting the paid level.

As Yahoo continues to add pieces to their Open Strategy it will be interesting to see how developers begin using these increasingly sophisticated tools.

Related ProgrammableWeb Resources

Yahoo Query Language API Profile, 1 mashup

Guest post by Dalirin
If you want to start a blog and you have money, it is advisable to go with your own web hosting because you would be in total control of your blog. There are so many web hosting companies, so what differentiates them are the services they provide.

Before you choose a web host, it is advisable to review if the web hosting company meets your requirements. If it doesn’t, you remove the company from your list and look for one that meets your requirements.

What to look for in a web host?

The requirements that you should look for in a web host are

1. Cost of Hosting - Consider your budget before choosing a host. Some web hosts would give you discount if you pay for 1 year. Some might give you more discount if you can pay for 2 years or even more. I prefer  going for hosting that cost less than $5 a month, but I will compromise if I cannot get a host that meets the other requirements of a web hosting company.

2. Addon Domains - If you have multiple websites, get a webhost that allows addon domains. I prefer hosts that allows  unlimited addon domains i.e. I can add as many as 20 sites to my account without being charged.

3. Down time - Look for hosts that have low down time. It is annoying if you try to access your site, and you cannot. If you have a business, this means losses because there were no sales. (If you have a wordpress blog, you can cache you site. You can read more about how QOT got more than 20K pageviews traffic despite Internal Server Errors!).

4. Web Space - You need a lot of webspace if your site is growing especially if you have addon domains. Every post you post on your site uses some of your web space. So this means that the more you post, the more space is being used monthly. If you have a WordPress blog, you would like to install plugins to improve your blogging. These plugins also use some portion of your web space. All this is for just 1 blog. If you have about 4 blogs, you post daily on your site, and you have been blogging for more than 2 years, how much web space would you have left if your web space is small.

5. Customer Support - A good web host should have online customer support. This is because you would like to receive an answer immediately and not after 6 hours. The customer support should be able to handle all your technical needs. A tech support representative from my host helped me transfer my database. If I go to look for help in places like forums, I would have to pay money to get that done for me.

6. Cpanel - Having a Cpanel feature would save you a lot of trouble. If you want to install a blog platform such as WordPress, you can do it with a single click from the Cpanel. If you don’t have a Cpanel, installing wordpress can take you more than 30 minutes if you have no clue.

7. Money Back Guarantee - You might change your mind later and decide to cancel a hosting service. Most good web hosts have 30 days or more money back guarantee. So if you change you mind within 30 days, you are sure of receiving your full refund back.

8. Reviews - Look for reviews about the web hosting company. People would always write if a web host is good or not. Read the negative reviews and see if it is a recurring problem or if it is an isolated problem. You can get web host reviews on forums or you can do a search on any search engine.

What other features do you look for in a web host? I would like to read your comments.

Guest blogger Dalirin owns a make money online blog, where he likes writing about how to make money online . You can also write a guest article and share your tips with our readers.

Read more about Blogging, Guest Posts, Hosting, Tips

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Credit

Seems that even the shiniest applications on the Web also face the same growing pains as any product, no matter where it resides on the adoption bell curve.

While many widely speculated the total number of new users who were introduced to Twitter as a result of the now infamous race to 1,000,000 followers, we do know that the number seems to hover between 500,000 and 1.2 million. When compared to the estimated existing user base of ~5 million heading into the race, the final number represents a significant spike in visibility, trials, and subsequent adoption. Irrespective of the exact number, believe that the culture of Twitter is forever influenced as it will with every big event.



Oprah Winfrey's followers have skyrocketed to 691,000 as a result of her televised tweet. She follows 11 people.



Ashton's follower count no longer needs media attention as it seems to be on auto-pilot now. He follows 137.

Robert Scoble made an interesting point recently, "She (Oprah) got at least 300,000 by being on the recommended follower list, not organically."

His point alludes to something we must consider. While the "Oprah Effect" is profound, is Twitter and its experiential value easily discernible by mainstream consumers?



While its traffic spikes appear significant, the true question is, what happens after new users create accounts and explore the service without direction or guidance?

Nielsen is reporting that Twitter's growth may indeed face hurdles based on current numbers that document follow vs. follow through.

According to the report, over 60 percent of new Twitter users fail to return the following month, creating a retention rate of only 40 percent. This isn't an isolated event. Over the last year, Twitter has struggled with user retention, averaging roughly 30 percent carry over from month to month.

Neilsen also explored other popular social networks on their rise to mass adoption.



Facebook and MySpace retention rates were twice as high during their phases of dramatic growth and only continued to escalate to the nearly 70 percent both enjoy today. Keep in mind that Facebook has surpassed 200 million active users.

It's in the way that you use it.

Your experienced is defined by those whom you follow.

Indeed, the potential market for "egocasting" is finite. The audience for self-promotion is limited in its patience. An ongoing popularity contest wears even the most persistent. And surely, Twitter is much more than a customer service channel for people to vent about product and service issues only to have companies save the day. The culture needs a supportive ecosystem of people and applications that define and propagate productive interaction. Perhaps Twitter's simplicity was its greatest catalyst and now potentially its most formidable barrier to reach the critical next stage of evolution. Twitter, along with the community, must demonstrate the value of micro updates and dialogue in order to provide long term value and and ensure resiliance for all parties. Adding clever, centralized insight, instruction, and information in addition to recommended people to follow will serve as a companion to those new users who wil not take the time to read the instructions and use cases that are globally dispersed across the Web.

Helpful Posts on PR 2.0:

- Twitter Flutters into Mainstream Culture: The New Competition for Attention Starts with You
- Online Reputation and Brand Management Starts with Identity
- The Social OS, The Battle Between Facebook and Twitter is the New Mac vs. PC
- The Domino's Effect
- The Conversation Index
- A New Search Engine for Twitter
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- Twitter Traffic Surges to 10 Million
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect and Disruption Theory
- Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is Now Available
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- The Human Network = The Social Economy
- In the Statusphere, ADD Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- Social Networks Now More Popular than Email; Facebook Surpasses MySpace
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love - Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- The Battle for Your Social Status
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Social Median, or Facebook
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The globe is abuzz with talk about a possible Swine Flu pandemic, and mashups are helping people who want to track the progress of the disease. Here are some these brand new mashups built using both the Google Maps API and the Twitter API.

Over at Google Maps Mania, Keir Clarke created a mashup that shows a timeline of swine flu outbreak using the Google Earth API and data from a Google MyMap created by a biomedical researcher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Keir writes: “Due to the inaccuracy of the data this map should be seen purely as an experiment. For example, the timestamps on the data seems to suggest that the outbreak spread from the USA to Mexico rather than the other way around. However the timeline does give a rough idea of how the outbreak seems to be spreading.” Check out their site for more good Swing Flu maps coverage.

Prolific map mashup developer Virender Ajmani has made a Google Maps and Twitter mashup that graphically tracks tweets on a map of the United States divided by region. The mashup shows the tweet, the tweeter, and the tweeter’s location (our Swine Flu Tweet Map profile).

At O’Reilly Radar, John Geraci has an interesting guest post on Trying to Track Swine Flu Across Cities in Realtime. Among other things, he notes a Twitter mashup: ‘SickCity is the “realtime disease detection for your city”, created by people at DIYcity. The service, launched last month, works by monitoring Twitter for local mentions of various terms that mean “I’m getting sick” and plotting those to location.’

And finally HealthMap, the global disease alert map service, has added a Swine Flu outbreak map using Google Maps. Each map pin shows a reported outbreak and a link to an online report with more information.

If you want ideas for a Google Maps swine flu mashup, take a look at our Google Maps mashup listings for some inspiration.

Related ProgrammableWeb Resources

Google Maps API Profile, 1678 mashups

Twitter API Profile, 165 mashups

Now you can download Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 (Service Pack 2) and get major performance enhancements for Office applications, most notably Microsoft Office Outlook, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Office 2007 SP2 features enhanced interoperability and supports additional built-in file formats such as PDF and ODF.

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) provides customers with the latest updates to the 2007 Office suite and contains several product fixes, including improvements in stability, performance, and security. Check out some  big areas of improvement that are included in SP2.

Supported Operating Systems include Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 3. Here are some known issues for these service packs, and learn how to debug and how to fix the issues that you may experience.

Download Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 for Free! Alternatively you can install this update from Microsoft Update, which consolidates all updates into one location and offers you only those that affect your particular system.

Read more about Microsoft, Software

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Guest post by Harsh
One of the biggest advantages of WordPress over blogspot is the power to add functions and modify the settings for better search engine optimization. Search engine optimization in simple words means making your blog/website search engine friendly. This will help your posts to rank high in search engine.

Wordpress is already SEO optimized but there are few settings needed to be done before launching your first post. If your useful post cannot be discovered by search engines, you are actually losing lots of potential readers.

Permalinks Migration

Wordpress Permalinks are permanent links of your posts. By default wordpress permalinks are in the following format
http://www.yourdomainname.com/?p=123

This is not a search engine friendly permalink. First thing after installing wordpress, you should consider changing your permalink structure. If you use permalinks which has keywords in it and are relevant to your post, chances of ranking in search engines are high.

The ideal permalinks are
/%category%/%postname%/
/%postname%.html

You can use either of them, but if you use more than one categories for a single post, I would suggest you to go for later one. You can change your permalink structure, under your wordpress admin dashboard > Settings > Permalinks

But what if you are changing your permalinks after publishing many posts? Use the Permalinks migration-plugin, and it will help your old permalinks to redirect to new ones instantly.  The redirection will be 301  permanent  redirects, so you do not loose any Google link juice.

SEO Friendly Images

Optimize your images for Search Engines. Many bloggers avoid the importance of traffic from image search engines, like Google image search and Yahoo image search. By adding an alt tag to your images you can make it search engine friendly.

The basic rule is if you upload any image by the name 12387.jpeg with the same alt tag, it doesn’t make any sense to search engines. But if you upload an image with the title iphone-screenshot.jpg and using the same alt tag, you can rank high in the image search engine results as well.

Though manually adding alt tag is not easy for every image you upload, this can be easily accomplished by using wordpress SEO-friendly image plugin.

It automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes. If your images do not have ALT and TITLE already set, SEO Friendly Images will add them according the options you set. Download SEO Friendly Images Plugin .

ALL in one SEO plugin

Recently I attended Wordcamp and got the opportunity to meet Matt Mullenweg.  In the discussion round, one of the topics was  integration of “ALL in one SEO plugin” with wordpress. Matt answered they would like it to be users choice rather then implementing it by default. The point here is “All in one SEO plugin” is one of the basic essential SEO plugin for any wordpress blogger.

All in one SEO plugin helps you to stuff appropriate keywords and optimizes your blog for the keywords you are targeting.  You can read more about the plugin or download All-in-one SEO plugin

Broken Link Checker

Broken links become dead ends for search engine bots. Suppose you have written a post which is pointing to a website www.domain.com, and after some time website goes down; you will never realize it and such posts become dead ends  for your blog.

Broken link checker wordpress plugin comes very handy in such situations. It will show the broken link on your dashboard which you can unlink from there. Download Broken link checker for WordPress

NoFollow Plugin

Nofollow plugin helps you to add a nofollow attribute to your external links. You can simply select to which external links you want to share your link juice. It’s always a good advice to add a nofollow attribute to bad neighborhoods, like warez websites or adult/p0rn websites. Download Nofollow WordPress Plugin

These search engine optimization tips will help you to get more visitors from search engines, but in the end it’s “Quality of the post” which matters the most. Don’t forget to share your search engine optimization technique.

Guest author Harsh Agarwal is a blogger from New Delhi, India who writes on ShoutMeLoud about social media, internet, computer tips and tricks, torrents and social networking. You can follow him on Twitter at @denharsh. You can also share your tips by guest blogging on QOT.

Read more about Blogging, Guest Posts, SEO, Tips, WordPress

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Twitter represents a technology platform, sustaining ecosystem, and evangelical community that facilitate not only a behavioral transformation in how we communicate and define online relationships, but also represents a fundamental shift in how we listen, share, participate, and learn. For many, Twitter is the catalyst that is inspiring individuals and organizations to discover and observe the real-time conversations and activity that affect perception and influence action. While Social Media has existed well before Twitter, its innovative, instantly gratifying, and seductive spirit is forcing the evolution of networks and applications across the Conversation Prism and the Social Web.

The lessons and experiences that transpire on Twitter humanizes our voice, transforms how we discover and share information, and connects us to an extensive and empowering contextual network that serves as the foundation for education and inspiration.

At the very least, we’re learning that cultivating and sustaining relationships on Twitter is defined less by our ability to merely participate in conversations through unstrung updates and public @’s and instead, prized by the personality, wisdom, and value we invest into each tweet as well as spotlighting notable insights of those we follow.

Our education spans a lifetime as long as we believe we have something to learn.

On June 16 & 17, I’m joining Jeff Pulver to organize and host the 140 Characters Conference (#140Conf) in New York. The conference will explore the effects of Twitter on communications, relationships, celebrity, media, advertising, politics, and social good.

The #140Conf will indeed feature a cast of 140 characters who will individually share their unique experiences, theories, discoveries, and creations in a motivating and rousing forum. We will leave informed, encouraged, and united as we focus on a greater mission of helping and guiding our respective communities to a higher state of social literacy through enriching and meaningful engagement.

This is an exciting time in which we live and we’re truly looking forward to seeing your avatar in real life IRL at the #140Conf.

Register here.

Exhibitors

Please fill out this online form if you are interested in showcasing your product or service at the conference.

Sponsors

There is a limited array of sponsorship opportunities to prominently showcase your brand at the event. Please contact me via email.

Media

We are offering press access to working members of the media. Please visit the press page for further details.



Helpful Posts on PR 2.0:

- Twitter Flutters into Mainstream Culture: The New Competition for Attention Starts with You
- Online Reputation and Brand Management Starts with Identity
- The Social OS, The Battle Between Facebook and Twitter is the New Mac vs. PC
- The Domino's Effect
- The Conversation Index
- A New Search Engine for Twitter
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- Facebook Now 200 Million Strong
- Twitter Traffic Surges to 10 Million
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect and Disruption Theory
- Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is Now Available
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- The Human Network = The Social Economy
- In the Statusphere, ADD Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- Social Networks Now More Popular than Email; Facebook Surpasses MySpace
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love - Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- The Battle for Your Social Status
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Social Median, or Facebook
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The API of microblogging service Twitter continues to be used as the basis for an ever increasing number of creative applications and is helping make Twitter the hottest property online. Now Facebook, with the launch of its highly anticipated Open Stream API, is attempting to gain some of that API-driven attention back.

Facebook’s Open Stream API allows developers to access a user’s “activity stream,” or what Facebook’s Ray C. He describes as “what’s going on right now in the world around” a given user. This data includes status updates, photos, links, and comments from the user’s friends. More importantly, the API also lets applications write data to the activity stream, including information from Facebook Connect sites, which is a first step in Facebook’s evolution toward becoming a read/write networking platform.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Open Stream API is Facebook’s adherence to the emerging Activity Streams standard. The Activity Streams standard allows websites to publish user stream information in the widely used Atom XML feed format. This standard potentially to allow developers to, for example, easily aggregate user streams from different providers.

The Open Stream API can also return data in JSON or XML format through the new stream functions in Facebook’s REST-like API, as well as through FQL, the Facebook Query Language. Facebook’s announcement notes that:

In addition to the Activity Streams interface, the Open Stream API includes robust new APIs called stream.get and stream.publish and new FQL tables that enable you to directly access the stream. With these new methods, you can access the stream on behalf of a user and then filter, remix, and display the stream back to that user however you choose, wherever you choose, in the manner most relevant for the user experience. Other new API methods will allow users to both publish into the stream and to add comments and “likes” to posts in the stream.

Facebook’s privacy model is much more rigid than that of other user stream providers (such as Twitter), preventing easy access to global public data that its users have posted. Therefore, Facebook users must explicitly grant permissions before an application can access user data. Some have already criticized Facebook’s inherent restrictions on data access. Marshall Kirkpatrick, of ReadWriteWeb, laments that the Open Stream API doesn’t open up data in a way that will allow developers to take advantage of the rich amount of user generated content on Facebook. He writes:

Unfortunately, the data that developers are able to work with is severely limited. They will simply be able to make a call for a user to Facebook and get back the friends’ streams that this particular user has the permission to see… The data that Facebook controls, conversations and social connections, could be used for analysis of real-time social patterns which could lead to world-shaking new insights. Do we get access to that data? No.

The API-level differences between Facebook and Twitter in many ways embody the broader trade-offs in privacy versus openness, to which there’s no easy answer.

Related ProgrammableWeb Resources

Facebook API Profile, 85 mashups

Twitter API Profile, 165 mashups

Yahoo! Geocities is closing down and webmasters hosting sites on Geocities need to find an alternate free hosting solution soon to move their websites. Dreamhost is offering Geocities users 2 years of free web hosting!

What is the deal? Free 2 years unlimited hosting. Free domain name!

What is required? They need to verify you are an existing GeoCities customer. So you need to login to Geocities and create a new web page or edit an existing page and post the text “I’m off to DreamHost!” on it. Since new users cannot sign up to Geocities, only existing users can do that.

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On February 19, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law, putting into effect the $787 billion economic stimulus package to pull the American economy out of a severe recession.   On the same day, the federal government launched the website recovery.gov with the following aims:

• Education: Explain the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;
• Transparency: Show how, when, and where the money is spent;
• Accountability: Provide data that will allow citizens to evaluate the Act’s progress and provide feedback.

What can you see there at this moment?

• Graphics to give overall situation, for instance
• Agency by agency breakdown links to current and past reports, including links to Excel spreadsheets.  For example, at the recovery.gov page for the Department of Education, you’ll see
• Links to the recovery sites for the states, all of which report data in their individual way
• The latest news, link to financial opportunities flowing from ARRA, link to the official watchdogs over this effort

It’s fair to say that recovery.gov is a work in progress.   Indeed, recovery.gov is hosting a “national dialogue” this week (until May 3) to solicit ideas aimed at answering the key question:

What ideas, tools, and approaches can make Recovery.gov a place where all citizens can transparently monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds?

You can check out the current ideas the ones with highest votes, and ideas with the most comments.  At the School of Information at UC Berkeley, we made recommendations on how data feeds should be used to foster transparency around stimulus data,  in addition to developing prototypes of the types of visualizations one could do with such data feeds. It will be interesting to see how well the recovery.gov site actually does at aggregating a large number of proposals and surfacing the best ones.

ProgrammableWeb readers will naturally ask the question “So where’s the API for recovery.gov?” (echoed in articles such as Activists call for a mashup-friendly Recovery.gov). Although recovery.gov, as well as the associated recovery sites for the agencies and states distributing funds, there is currently no recovery.gov API per se.  The current available data (much of it in Excel spreadsheets) has not been designed for easy parsing and repurposing. Moreover, there here are hotly debated issue of what data should be made available (e.g., should money distributed to subcontractors, and their subcontractors and so on, be reported?).  In future posts, we’ll examine in greater detail how data around the stimulus is constructed, disseminated, and interpreted — and the types of mashups that make use of any stimulus data.

Every company with more than about a dozen locations needs some way for customers to find the nearest store. Most of these features are showing their age, with tiny, non-interactive maps. Here are three store locators that shine by using a JavaScript mapping API, custom location markers and a little ingenuity.

Ace Hardware’s store locator takes the typing out of store locating. It guesses the user’s city by IP address lookup and automatically shows the stores within 30 miles. You can refine the search by typing your zip code or even street address. Even better, there’s a store features filter, so you can only see places that sell propane, for example.

It uses Google Maps and has a custom, tabbed info window with store info and hours. The only downside is that whenever you click a marker, the map shifts way to the side. On the other hand, the store info is also highlighted in the right column.

Mmm, ice cream! Cold Stone Creamery’s locator starts with a view of the entire U.S. with 17 cluster icons. The site shows this magnifying glass marker whenever showing actual locations would be too crowded. In just five clicks, I can see all of their locations within my city.

Of course, you can type in a city name or zip code to zoom directly to your nearby creameries. Once there, the snazzy custom info window shows store info in one tab and hours in another, all on a zippy Google Map.

To get to Target’s good store locator, and to avoid a decidedly Web 1.0 experience, you’ll need to choose their Enhanced Maps. Then you’ll see Target icons gracing a highly customized Virtual Earth map. The nearest five are numbered, making it easy to see the closest without giving up seeing other locations not too far away.

The info window might be the best part of this store locator. Clicking a marker doesn’t force the map to slip. Instead, the info window opens in the direction where is has the most room to be displayed. It’s missing easy access to store hours, but there is a form to quickly get directions.

This week’s new API entries came from both very large and quite small organizations. Google released two notable APIs, the Google Analytics API and the Google O3D API, both of which we reported on earlier this week (here on Google Analytics and here on Google O3D). The slick image editing service Aviary now offers an API, we’ve added another financial web service from the folks at Xignite (over 40 of their financial web service APIs are listed here), there’s the FuncNet service for those in the computational biology community, and our own ProgrammableWeb API that gives you an API to find APIs. Here’s the full rundown:

Aviary API: The Aviary API gives access to Aviary’s online image editor, vector editor, effects editor, and color swatch tool. You can edit images, create effects, design logos, find colors, and collaborate.

FuncNet API: FuncNet is an open platform for the prediction and comparison of protein function. It is a free service for the computational biology community, provided by a consortium of bioinformatics groups, and using industry-standard web-service protocols throughout.

Google Analytics API: The new Google Analytics Data Export API lets develop client applications that download Analytics data in the form of Google Data API feeds. Your client application can use the Data Export API to request data from an existing Analytics profile for an authorized user, and refine the results of the request using query parameters. Currently, the Data Export API supports read-only access to your Google Analytics data. The current feeds in the Data Export API contain two general categories of Analytics data: Analytics accounts and website profiles; Analytics report data from a single profile.

Google O3D API: O3D is a new, shader-based, low-level graphics API for creating interactive 3D applications in a web browser. O3D runs on multiple operating systems and browsers, performs well in JavaScript, and offers the capabilities developers need to create a diverse set of rich applications. O3D has an open-source JavaScript API for creating interactive 3D graphics applications that run in a browser window: games, ads, 3D model viewers, product demos, and virtual worlds.

mobiAPI API: mobiAPI is a data reporting solution for mobile applications creators to make profit-generating decisions. Used to gain insight into your user’s behavior, patterns and data usage in real time. mobiAPI works with all mobile devices, does not require the integration of foreign code, or infrastructure maintenance.

ProgrammableWeb API: Our API for APIs. Use it to find web services and mashups. The ProgrammableWeb API gives you a simple and structured way to access the well known registry and repository capabilities of PW. The PW API is based on open standards like OpenSearch and the Atom Publishing Protocol. This lets you get up to speed quickly, and if you’re familiar with Google’s GData APIs you’ve got an even better head start. See our examples page for some ideas and source code in PHP, JavaScript, .NET and Java. We’ll have more to say about this API soon.

XigniteSecurity API: This web service provides securities master information for companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. You can use XigniteSecurity to lookup and validate the names, ticker symbols, CUSIPs, CIKs, industry classifications, exchange listings, dividend and split history, etc. This web service allows you to lookup securities master information on -demand without the need to maintain the stocks and mutual fund master lists yourself.

On Monday, I'm joining some of the industry's most visionary and prolific leaders in the hybrid new world of traditional and new media and marketing.

Please visit the NewComm Forum Website for details on the activities, discussions, and people participating over the course of the two day event. If you'd like to attend, enter the code SNCRFRIEND to receive a discount of $100.

Here's my agenda...

Monday, April 27th from 11:15 - 12:30 p.m.

Social Media & Investor Relations – Disclosure & Other Issues

Social media is reshaping disclosure and the practice of investor relations. As the social web begets a human voice and genuine transparency, it also raises the risks of meeting and maintaining legal compliance. The SEC has recently modified its stance on blogs, but as new social tools continue to innovate and gain traction, can companies as well as the SEC, keep pace with a rapidly evolving landscape of social networks in order to meet investor demand as well as the emerging opportunities for engagement and communication?

I've organized an expert panel that includes those active in covering and defining the world of disclosure in the era of the social web:

Richard Brewer-Hay, Ebay
Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher
David Gelles, Financial Times
Bryan Rhoads, Intel

Monday, April 27th from 2:00 - 3:15 p.m.

The New Organization Landscape for Marketing Communications

Who owns social media? Honestly, it’s the wrong question to ask. The truth is that we all are responsible for socializing our role within the organization to cultivate a voice and personality for the brand we represent. In order to compete for prominence in the future, we must first compete for attention where and when it’s captivated. As we transform our individual divisions to collectively humanize our company as well as establish the policies, programs, and new responsibilities for listening and engaging in “twitter time,” we’re actively contributing to a new organizational landscape that redraws the boundaries between sales, service, and marketing communications. We’ll discuss responsibilities, models, reporting, analytics, and opportunities to explore alternative topographies for collaboration and innovation.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Social Median, or Facebook
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What do you get when you combine 36 different APIs into 28 different applications? You get this week’s additions to our mashup directory. Some of the less frequently seen APIs include Freebase, Capitol Words, MTV, as well as DigitalBucket. Which API was used most? It was the Twitter API, used in 10 mashups this week. And in yet another example of one API being built on top of another API is the TwitPic API, a Twitter-based service, used in this week’s twipick entry. The list below shows which APIs were used by which mashups:

 Amazon eCommerce used in NoMarketPlace, The Amazon.com Gadget

 Amazon Fulfillment Web Service used in JoomFlix - Mashing Joomla

 Amazon S3 used in Imaginalaxy

 Capitol Words used in Legistalker

 DigitalBucket used in DigitalBucket with e-signatures

 EchoSign used in DigitalBucket with e-signatures

 Facebook used in alem.com, Imaginalaxy, Initt

 FeedBurner used in twipick

 Flickr used in Imaginalaxy, Infinite Monkey Comics, Initt

 Freebase used in Last.FM Nationality Statitics

 Google Ajax Search used in Initt

 Google Analytics used in Desktop Reporting for Google Analytics - Polaris, Key Metrics for Google Analytics

 Google Calendar used in Initt

 Google Homepage used in The Amazon.com Gadget

 Google Maps used in Citizen Service Requests, Initt, New Homes Today, Tracks, Virtual Tour

 Google Maps Flash used in DUI Map

 Google Search used in Favmvs

 Google Talk used in alem.com

 Google Translate used in Google Translator Widget for Mobile

 Google Visualization used in Guardian Trends

 Guardian used in Guardian Trends

 Internet Video Archive used in JoomFlix - Mashing Joomla

 Last.fm used in Last.FM Nationality Statitics

 Maponics used in Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries

 MSN Messenger used in alem.com

 MTV used in Favmvs

 MySpace used in Imaginalaxy

 Sunlight Labs used in Filibusted, Hello, Congress, Legistalker

 Tumblr used in twipick

 TwitPic used in twipick

 Twitter used in alem.com, Infinite Monkey Comics, Initt, Legistalker, NewsTrendz, NoMarketPlace, tweet-rank, twipick, Twitter Search Box, twtAd

 Weather Channel used in Initt

 Yahoo BOSS used in NewsTrendz

 Yahoo Mail used in Initt

 Yahoo Music used in alem.com

 YouTube used in Legistalker, NewsTrendz

And each day there is one mashup selected to be Mashup of the Day. Here are last week’s winners:

 Filibusted

 Guardian Trends

 Infinite Monkey Comics

 Last.FM Nationality Statitics

 NewsTrendz

 twipick

 twtAd