I love social networking. I think there's a lot of promise in tools that allow people to connect with one another across large distances, connect with colleagues and professionals, or even organize like-minded people for a common cause. But for all of the promise social networking sites and services offer, there are still people who use them for nothing more than marketing a brand or making themselves feel popular. That's where MySpace Friend Adder comes in. If your MySpace profile is a little lonely and you want to make more friends, just give the service your information; in return, it promises thousands of new MySpace friends.
There are two major target audiences for a service like the MySpace Friend Adder: marketing professionals who have a brand or product to promote and who have decided that MySpace is the perfect medium, and lonely MySpace users whose paltry handful of friends isn't enough to satisfy their desire to be one of the "cool kids." In both cases, it's somewhat sad and an awful reflection on what MySpace has become, now that everyone's attention has turned to Facebook instead.
The service is simple: Just give the MySpace Friend Adder your "friend code," a number in your MySpace profile, and the service presents you with a screen of friends you can automatically add to your MySpace profile. It's likely that all of those accounts are set to automatically accept friend requests, and it's likely that all of those users have also used the Friend Adder in the past. Either that or the service just mercilessly hammers random MySpace users with friend requests.
The service gives out "friend points" for using it and for adding friends who in turn add you back. What those points are good for is anyone's guess, but some people are apparently dependent enough on the service to bolster their friends lists that they've collected upwards of 150 points. (It's worth noting that the users with the most points are all marketing services.) You can shell out $3 to be a VIP for a day, and up to $60 to be a VIP for two months, whatever that might mean.
The MySpace Friend Adder proves that MySpace is either going down the tubes or that social networking of the MySpace genre is a sham. I'd like to believe that it's more the former than the latter, but I'm sure that you could argue both based on the existence of "friend adding services" as a genre.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Latest Frontrunner?
Hillary Clinton and John McCain, at the top of the New Hampshire heap, are savoring their new labels as frontrunners. But apparently they have to share with another frontrunner, at least according to an eWEEK article by Steven Vaughan-Nichols. Is Network Solutions reveling in the label? Maybe not so much.
You see, in Internet lingo, "front running" means locking up a domain name as soon as somebody does a Whois search. A cynic might point out that if a person happens to search for a domain on Joe's registration site, and Joe immediately grabs the name, then anyone wanting to buy the domain will have to go to
You see, in Internet lingo, "front running" means locking up a domain name as soon as somebody does a Whois search. A cynic might point out that if a person happens to search for a domain on Joe's registration site, and Joe immediately grabs the name, then anyone wanting to buy the domain will have to go to
QiPit Turns Cameraphone Images to PDFs
I've often found myself in meetings where my colleagues and I fill a whiteboard with ideas but forget to write any of them down. When the meeting is over, we all run back to our desks, grab pens and paper, and come back to the conference room to try and make sense of our whiteboard notes.
With QiPit, we can fill up a whiteboard without worrying that we won't be able to leave the meeting with copies of everything we wrote. QiPit allows you to use your cameraphone to snap an image of a document, a whiteboard or chalkboard, or even handwritten notes and convert it to a PDF that you can e-mail, fax, or publish straight from your phone.
Whether you're sitting in a long corporate meeting, and you've filled up the whiteboard with ideas and bullet points, or you're sitting in a class where your professor likes to erase the board before you can write everything down, QPit can help. You can take pictures of just about anything with your camera phone, then send the image to QiPit, which will convert the image into a PDF document and send it back to you.
Qipit works equally well with chalkboards, written notes, whiteboards, and printed documents. The limiting factor is the quality of your camera phone. The service works with most major camera phones and offers a model selector that tells you what you can do with each type of phone. The service's basic features work best with whiteboards, handwritten notes, and printed documents, but the better the camera on your phone, the higher-quality images and PDFs it can produce for you. QiPit does some image clean-up for you--brightening up dark images to bring out the text, for example.
Once you have the converted PDF, you can store it on your phone or on the Web, e-mail it to yourself or your colleagues, fax it to a friend from your cell phone, and publish it to the Web. Alternatively, you can save PDFs in your QiPit account, tag them, and organize them. The service was designed to be used with camera phones, but you can use a digital camera as well and e-mail the photo to your QiPit account.
QiPit members use the service for ideas scribbled on napkins, class notes on chalkboards, and handwritten notes from meetings and study sessions. If you're the type of person who's always jotting down notes on random slips of paper, QiPit could be useful for you to get all of those ideas in one place. Best of all, the service is free.
With QiPit, we can fill up a whiteboard without worrying that we won't be able to leave the meeting with copies of everything we wrote. QiPit allows you to use your cameraphone to snap an image of a document, a whiteboard or chalkboard, or even handwritten notes and convert it to a PDF that you can e-mail, fax, or publish straight from your phone.
Whether you're sitting in a long corporate meeting, and you've filled up the whiteboard with ideas and bullet points, or you're sitting in a class where your professor likes to erase the board before you can write everything down, QPit can help. You can take pictures of just about anything with your camera phone, then send the image to QiPit, which will convert the image into a PDF document and send it back to you.
Qipit works equally well with chalkboards, written notes, whiteboards, and printed documents. The limiting factor is the quality of your camera phone. The service works with most major camera phones and offers a model selector that tells you what you can do with each type of phone. The service's basic features work best with whiteboards, handwritten notes, and printed documents, but the better the camera on your phone, the higher-quality images and PDFs it can produce for you. QiPit does some image clean-up for you--brightening up dark images to bring out the text, for example.
Once you have the converted PDF, you can store it on your phone or on the Web, e-mail it to yourself or your colleagues, fax it to a friend from your cell phone, and publish it to the Web. Alternatively, you can save PDFs in your QiPit account, tag them, and organize them. The service was designed to be used with camera phones, but you can use a digital camera as well and e-mail the photo to your QiPit account.
QiPit members use the service for ideas scribbled on napkins, class notes on chalkboards, and handwritten notes from meetings and study sessions. If you're the type of person who's always jotting down notes on random slips of paper, QiPit could be useful for you to get all of those ideas in one place. Best of all, the service is free.
FeedDemon and NetNewsWire Now Free Downloads
Fans of desktop RSS readers, rejoice! Newsgator, the company behind NetNewsWire for Mac and FeedDemon for Windows, has updated and released all its desktop and mobile RSS readers for free. NetNewsWire and FeedDemon are highly regarded and generally considered the best RSS aggregators that money can buy--and now, you don't have to pay anything for them.
All NewsGator's personal products are free now, including FeedDemon for Windows, NetNewsWire for Mac, NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, NewsGator Inbox for Outlook, and NewsGator Online (its Web-based offering). NetNewsWire and FeedDemon were also updated to new versions, which NewsGator claims include improvements in stability and functionality.
The biggest selling points for NetNewsWire and FeedDemon have been their ability to work with the speed, simplicity, and customization options of a desktop client, but still remain connected to NewsGator's servers so you could access your preferences and feeds remotely. This way, you have the ability to choose when you refresh your feeds, manage your feeds on one computer and have the settings filter down to all the other clients you use, and still log in to NewsGator Online to read your feeds. FeedDemon, for example, is so robust that it earned an Editor's Choice award when FeedDemon 2.0 was released.
NewsGator has promised to continue updating and developing its desktop and individual products, even though they're now free. The company will instead turn its focus to its enterprise offerings, including its Enterprise Server platform, its widget framework and social networking software for Microsoft Sharepoint. The company is aiming to bring the success its had in the end-user market to the corporate arena.
[ via MarketWire ]
All NewsGator's personal products are free now, including FeedDemon for Windows, NetNewsWire for Mac, NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, NewsGator Inbox for Outlook, and NewsGator Online (its Web-based offering). NetNewsWire and FeedDemon were also updated to new versions, which NewsGator claims include improvements in stability and functionality.
The biggest selling points for NetNewsWire and FeedDemon have been their ability to work with the speed, simplicity, and customization options of a desktop client, but still remain connected to NewsGator's servers so you could access your preferences and feeds remotely. This way, you have the ability to choose when you refresh your feeds, manage your feeds on one computer and have the settings filter down to all the other clients you use, and still log in to NewsGator Online to read your feeds. FeedDemon, for example, is so robust that it earned an Editor's Choice award when FeedDemon 2.0 was released.
NewsGator has promised to continue updating and developing its desktop and individual products, even though they're now free. The company will instead turn its focus to its enterprise offerings, including its Enterprise Server platform, its widget framework and social networking software for Microsoft Sharepoint. The company is aiming to bring the success its had in the end-user market to the corporate arena.
[ via MarketWire ]
As Lucasfilm Goes, So Goes HD?
First Warner Brothers announced it was going Blu, then the producers of blue movies started making similar sounds about a move to Blu-ray. Microsoft has even made some noise about the Blu-ing of xBox after the fall of HD DVD.
All this is all well and good for Sony's format (and welcome news for anyone who got a PS3 this holiday season), but it's nothing compared to the legions of geeks who're waiting--nay, clamoring--for the Star Wars saga to go HD. If that series of SF masterpieces (okay, call them blockbusters) went Blu, it would be a mammoth body-blow to the HD DVD format. Lucasfilm is officially "agnostic" at this point, but what do the series hardcore fans want? You know, the ones who dress up in wookie suits for the cons.
It's anyone's guess what will actually happen, but there is an interesting poll on the starwars.com site today, and the results are encouraging for Blu-ray owners. At the time I wrote this, Blu-ray was winning by a margin of nearly seven to one--68% for Blu-ray, versus an anemic 10% for HD DVD. As anyone who's following the Primaries knows, polls are probably only one step from damned lies and statistics. Still, the number of undecideds--those who haven't picked a format yet--is a bit smaller than independents in the recent contest in the Live Free or Die State, at 22%.
Granted, the correlation between gamers and Star Wars fanatics is probably quite high, so we're probably talking about a lot of people who use their game console as their main player, and for full HD that means PS3s (some, but not all, xBox 360s can handle 1080p signals, and that requires an aftermarket add on). It's hard to say how much of a predictor this is for the other high-def movie enthusiasts out there. Still, the Star Wars franchise has racked up phenomenal sales in every format in which it's been released.
It's early days for this poll, which runs until the twenty-second of this month, but things are looking Blu in the nerd camp. How will you vote?
Post by Sean Carroll
All this is all well and good for Sony's format (and welcome news for anyone who got a PS3 this holiday season), but it's nothing compared to the legions of geeks who're waiting--nay, clamoring--for the Star Wars saga to go HD. If that series of SF masterpieces (okay, call them blockbusters) went Blu, it would be a mammoth body-blow to the HD DVD format. Lucasfilm is officially "agnostic" at this point, but what do the series hardcore fans want? You know, the ones who dress up in wookie suits for the cons.
It's anyone's guess what will actually happen, but there is an interesting poll on the starwars.com site today, and the results are encouraging for Blu-ray owners. At the time I wrote this, Blu-ray was winning by a margin of nearly seven to one--68% for Blu-ray, versus an anemic 10% for HD DVD. As anyone who's following the Primaries knows, polls are probably only one step from damned lies and statistics. Still, the number of undecideds--those who haven't picked a format yet--is a bit smaller than independents in the recent contest in the Live Free or Die State, at 22%.
Granted, the correlation between gamers and Star Wars fanatics is probably quite high, so we're probably talking about a lot of people who use their game console as their main player, and for full HD that means PS3s (some, but not all, xBox 360s can handle 1080p signals, and that requires an aftermarket add on). It's hard to say how much of a predictor this is for the other high-def movie enthusiasts out there. Still, the Star Wars franchise has racked up phenomenal sales in every format in which it's been released.
It's early days for this poll, which runs until the twenty-second of this month, but things are looking Blu in the nerd camp. How will you vote?
Post by Sean Carroll
Last.FM Goes Windows Mobile
It may not be the long-promised Slacker player, but music lovers with a Windows Mobile phone will surely be pleased to hear about the introduction of a version of Internet radio service Last.fm for their favorite mobile OS.
Last.fm Mobile "scrobbles" music from Windows Media Player (basing playlists upon your existing music library) and offers "experimental radio functionality," according to Download Squad. The app works with Windows Media Player 5 or 6 and .NET Compact Framework 2.0.
Last.fm Mobile "scrobbles" music from Windows Media Player (basing playlists upon your existing music library) and offers "experimental radio functionality," according to Download Squad. The app works with Windows Media Player 5 or 6 and .NET Compact Framework 2.0.
RIAA Goes After Usenet Newsgroups for Copyright Infringement
Perhaps empowered by a recent $222,000 ruling in its favor, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) is now going after Usenet.com, one of the companies hosting the distributed Usenet newsgroups, for "consciously and blatantly" facilitating the illegal downloading of copyrighted material.
The recording industry filed suit Friday in a New York district court and is looking to recover Usenet profits, $150,000 per infringement and attorneys fees.
The RIAA asserts in its filing that Usenet.com is "almost identical" to Napster and other illegal P2P file sharing services. Usenet.com, however, goes further to provide "enhancements that make the service more attractive" for those looking to share files illegally, according to the suit.
Usenet.com allows users to share data on its system like a message board. The service provides a variety of service plans, from $18.95 per month for unlimited access to $4.95 per month for 2GB of space.
The RIAA alleges that these fees encourage Usenet to support infringement. Usenet.com's "profits increase with the amount of infringement it fosters [because] binary files are significantly larger than text files," according to the suit. "The more copyrighted sound recordings users download, the more money [Usenet.com] makes."
The RIAA points to notices on the Usenet Web site that appear to encourage illegal downloads like: "Shh ... Quiet! We believe it's no one's business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."
Such statement could be problematic in court in the RIAA wants to invoke the Grokster ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled against filing sharing services because it found that "each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement"
A copyright policy on the Usenet Web site prohibits the trading of illegal material, but the RIAA claims that Usenet nonetheless "expressly promises its users that it will not take action against them for downloading infringing material."
Usenet.com did immediately respond to requests for comment.
A quick perusal of songs being illegally downloaded by Usenet.com users, meanwhile, include selections from Ace of Base, Air Supply, Kenny G and Milli Vanilli, so perhaps this case should be an attack on musical tastes rather than Internet practices.
The recording industry filed suit Friday in a New York district court and is looking to recover Usenet profits, $150,000 per infringement and attorneys fees.
The RIAA asserts in its filing that Usenet.com is "almost identical" to Napster and other illegal P2P file sharing services. Usenet.com, however, goes further to provide "enhancements that make the service more attractive" for those looking to share files illegally, according to the suit.
Usenet.com allows users to share data on its system like a message board. The service provides a variety of service plans, from $18.95 per month for unlimited access to $4.95 per month for 2GB of space.
The RIAA alleges that these fees encourage Usenet to support infringement. Usenet.com's "profits increase with the amount of infringement it fosters [because] binary files are significantly larger than text files," according to the suit. "The more copyrighted sound recordings users download, the more money [Usenet.com] makes."
The RIAA points to notices on the Usenet Web site that appear to encourage illegal downloads like: "Shh ... Quiet! We believe it's no one's business but your own what you do on the Internet or in Usenet. We don't track user activity."
Such statement could be problematic in court in the RIAA wants to invoke the Grokster ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled against filing sharing services because it found that "each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement"
A copyright policy on the Usenet Web site prohibits the trading of illegal material, but the RIAA claims that Usenet nonetheless "expressly promises its users that it will not take action against them for downloading infringing material."
Usenet.com did immediately respond to requests for comment.
A quick perusal of songs being illegally downloaded by Usenet.com users, meanwhile, include selections from Ace of Base, Air Supply, Kenny G and Milli Vanilli, so perhaps this case should be an attack on musical tastes rather than Internet practices.
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