What Comes After the iPad? [Humor]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/OewxjFx4uSY/what-comes-after-the-ipad

When the iPad was unveiled in January, everyone could agree on one thing: it did look a lot like a big iPhone. Begeek.fr extends Apple's consistent design to its logical conclusion in the company's next two revolutionary devices.

I hear the iBoard's going to implement twenty finger multi-touch and the iMat's even going to support Flash. [BeGeek.fr]

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Twitter Helps Find Missing Family Member After Chile Earthquake

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Maria Missing Person ImageA woman was able to track down her missing sister-in-law today thanks to the help of a fellow Twitter user.

Earlier we posted some of the Chile earthquake pictures that Chileans have been sharing on Twitter of the devastation caused by this morning’s magnitude-8.8 earthquake. Many of our readers were moved, as we were, to see some of the destruction first-hand. But one reader, Sheryl Breuker, shared a personal story with us in the comments about the true power of social media in crisis situations.

She wrote:

“…my sister-in-law was in Santiago and we couldn’t find her. No text, no phones, nothing. We were able to make contact with locals using twitter search to follow hashtags and several people contacted us asking for details. One of the locals looked for, and FOUND my brothers wife, 2 hours after first contact. I am so thankful for social media, grateful to the power of networking and beyond ecstatic my sister-in-law was safe and her home intact.”


Twitter User Offers Help


Because power and phone lines are down in many areas near Santiago, Breuker’s attempts to call, text, and e-mail her sister-in-law were in vain.

She then turned to Twitter and used hashtags to make a connection with any locals near Santiago where her sister-in-law Maria lives. Many responded by retweeting the missing person link, created with Google’s Chile Earthquake Person Finder.

Tweet image

Before long, she was contacted by a stranger who lived in the area, asking how he could help. Through their Twitter correspondence, Breuker was able to pass on Maria’s address to the man, who could physically go there to check on her sister-in-law.

Tweet Image

Within two hours of their first contact, Breuker received a Direct Message on Twitter from the man: “found her! she is OK…. she told me to tell Twinkie to stay cool, she is fine!”

tweet image

The story really illustrates the power of social networks in a crisis situation. They provide communication channels that spread out in all directions, bypassing the direct lines like phone and e-mail that in this situation, simply didn’t work.

The story is detailed further in Breuker’s blog post.

Have you heard other stories of social media connecting missing loved ones in Chile, Haiti, or elsewhere? Share them in the comments below.


Reviews: Google, Twitter

Tags: chile, chile earthquake, social media, social networks, twitter

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Microsoft Employee Shows Off Prototype Windows Phone 7 Series Smartphone From LG [Windowsphone7]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/UGv8Gyiztik/microsoft-employee-shows-off-prototype-windows-phone-7-series-smartphone-from-lg

Aaron Woodman, the director of consumer experiences for Microsoft's mobile division, was a guest on today's Engadget Show, and he had a nice surprise for everyone: a prototype of LG's Windows Phone 7 Series phone.

There's not a whole lot in the way of details—it's a slider that's a bit thicker than the iPhone, it has a 5MP camera, and sports six hardware buttons—but it's still exciting to see the new operating system on a branded device for the first time.

Woodman wouldn't confirm nor deny if Windows Phone 7 Series would support Mac OS, only mentioning that it was a topic the team was currently discussing. Hey, at least the notion hasn't been shut down out of hand, so we'll take this as a no news is good news type of thing for now.

Head over to Engadget for more pictures and a quick video clip of the LG phone in the round. [Engadget]

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Facebook to Take 30% Cut of Developers’ Facebook Credits Revenues

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Facebook will soon roll Facebook Credits out to even more application developers, so it has publicly announced that it will take 30% of the revenues earned for goods sold via Facebook Credits.

Facebook Credits make up Facebook’s virtual currency; the currency became available to some users last spring. Those users could buy gifts with it. Facebook then made a deal that gave users the ability to purchase Facebook Credits with their PayPal accounts and offered Facebook Credits as a currency option to several application developers, including uber-huge game-makers Playfish and Zynga.

Facebook says it’s taking the 30% cut so it can invest “heavily in the ecosystem” by educating users and marketing to them about the currency, testing out incentives to get people to try the credits out, and seeding credits to get people comfortable with them.

Here’s an interesting coincidence: That’s the same percentage that Apple takes from App Store sales.

Just before 2010 began, we named virtual currency as one of the major moves to expect from Facebook this year. That was after we predicted earlier in 2009 that Facebook would deploy a currency.

We’re still waiting for Facebook to bring Facebook Credits and Facebook Connect together to become a major transactional entity on the web, but just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Facebook is wisely starting small.


Reviews: Facebook

Tags: facebook, facebook credits, facebook platform, microtransactions, online games, virtual currency

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Details: Twitter’s Impending Ad Platform

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/RmqziilZ410/

The guessing game surrounding Twitter’s imminent launch of an ad platform just got a little bit more focused. The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog reports that Twitter’s ad plan is tied to Twitter search (and third-parties that use the API), uses Twitter’s 140 character limit, and includes a self-serve platform akin to Google AdWords. Succinctly, it describes the plan as “Copy Google.”

As Twitter’s been implying all along, the idea here is to be as non-invasive as possible. As opposed to inserting ads into your stream, Twitter is only going to place ads in search. On the other hand, if third-party apps like TweetDeck or Seesmic jump on board (and WSJ says a revenue share will incentivize them to do so), the searches you run and set up inside the program would conceivably include ads.

Rumor has it that Twitter will reveal some of its advertising strategy when CEO Evan Williams keynotes at SXSW in two weeks, but All Things Digital isn’t so sure, writing only that a launch within “the first half of this year is a very safe bet.”

My initial thought is that while this sounds like a win for users (no annoying ads in stream), it might not be the huge windfall you’d expect for Twitter. When you search Twitter, you’re typically looking for comments and conversation about a topic — not necessarily products or services to buy that relate to it. While the 140 character twist sounds interesting, I’d expect the payout to be a lot more like AdSense (contextual ads) than AdWords (search ads).

Nonetheless, if The Wall Street Journal has the broad strategy correct, Twitter will be able to both advertise on-site and in the third-party clients that have become such a popular means for accessing the service. With Twitter now seeing upwards of 1.5 billion tweets per month, the opportunity is still likely substantial, though we don’t know what Twitter’s total search volume looks like.

It does appear, however, that we’ll at long last soon have some answers surrounding the omnipresent (if not slightly tired at this point) question of how Twitter plans to make money.

Tags: advertising, MARKETING, trending, twitter

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Remarkable Stats on the State of the Internet [VIDEO]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/4ASXx6dcvWY/

Individual stats like Facebook passing the 400 million user mark, Twitter hitting 50 million tweets per day, and YouTube viewers watching 1 billion videos per day are impressive on their own, but what if we looked at Internet-related stats collectively? Jesse Thomas did just that in his video State of the Internet.

The video — created and animated by Thomas with data from multiple sources — highlights some remarkable figures and visually depicts the Internet as we know it today. It’s a must-watch video for anyone trying to wrap their minds around just how immersed web technologies have become in our everyday lives.

You can watch the video below, but we’ve also included some of the most intriguing figures shared in the video:

- There are 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of September 2009.

- There are 1.4 billion e-mail users worldwide, and on average we collectively send 247 billion e-mails per day. Unfortunately 200 billion of those are spam e-mails.

- As of December 2009, there are 234 million websites.

- Facebook gets 260 billion pageviews per month, which equals 6 million page views per minute and 37.4 trillion pageviews in a year.


Tags: stats, video

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Baidu Gets $50 Million to Bring New Video Site to China

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China’s 400 million or so Internet users will soon be able to enjoy a new online video service. Baidu, the country’s top search provider, has announced plans to create a new video-on-demand website.

With the domain name Qiyi.com registered, Providence Equity Partners (a global private equity investment firm that put $100 million into the Hulu pot) will invest $50 million to develop the advertising-supported online video business — with Baidu retaining majority ownership.

Rather than user-generated content, Qiyi.com will provide “premium licensed content” OK’d by regulators for the “lawful distribution of professionally produced media and entertainment content on the Internet,” according to the announcement.

Baidu has previously offered video search, as well as the Baidu Internet TV Channel, where Internet users can download movies and TV programs. It is also said to have some strategic investment in PPLive, a Chinese P2P site.

According to Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, “The online video market has great potential for growth in China.” So these plans will be watched with interest, especially with the Hulu investment link.

Tags: Baidu


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Google Hit With Antitrust Investigation in Europe


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Google Hit With Antitrust Investigation in Europe

Are Google search results purely algorithmic, or does the “do no evil” empire occasionally inject editorial oversight in the name of stifling competition?

According to three European companies – one of which is owned by Microsoft – the latter is true, and according to The Telegraph, their allegations have led the European Commission to launch an investigation into the search giant.

Specifically, UK price comparison site Foundem and French legal directory ejustice.fr allege that Google demotes their respective sites in search rankings because they potentially represent a threat to Google’s ad revenue. Meanwhile, the nature of Microsoft-owned shopping site Ciao’s complaint is not immediately known, though Google implies in a blog post that the dispute is over AdSense terms and conditions.

Google goes on to write on their European Public Policy blog that they “will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints” but “are confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law.”

This isn’t the first time Google will face scrutiny from regulators. In the US, its acquisition of DoubleClick was closely examined by the FTC before eventually winning approval. Meanwhile, antitrust concerns killed a deal that Google had made with Yahoo for ad serving back in 2008. Yahoo has since made a deal with Microsoft that was just approved last week after a lengthy review.

There is of course an irony involved in Microsoft being part of an antitrust complaint against Google. It was only a few days ago that Microsoft was forced to introduce browser choice on Windows machines in Europe as a result of a previo...

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More People Interested In Buying iPad Than Original iPhone [Chart]


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More People Interested In Buying iPad Than Original iPhone [Chart]

That's what this RBC/ChangeWave's surveys says. Back in April 2007, fewer people were interested in buying the original iPhone compared to those wanting to buy the iPad on February 2010. Does this mean the iPad would be a bigger success?


Not necessarily. It may mean that, but we don't really know for sure. First, back then the iPhone was completely unknown. A new, unproven product, with no user base whatsoever. Today, the iPhone and iPod are well known, so one could even argue that—given their massive popularity—a higher percentage of people would be interested in buying the iPad. In other words, who knows. Let's wait until Apple actually makes the iPad available on their site.


There are other interesting data points. One is the version people are most interested in: The lowest end and the highest end win, with 19% each. With the 64GB Wi-Fi getting only 8% and the 16GB Wi-Fi and 3G version getting 9% of the interest.


Another interesting one: 68% of the people interested in it want to surf the internet, 44% for email, 37% for eBooks, 28% for the reading magazines and other periodicals, and only 24% for watching video. [Digital Daily]




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Twitter Cuts Deal with Yahoo


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Twitter Cuts Deal with Yahoo

These days, the web of connections between various social media sites, search engine giants, old software stand bys and hot Internet startups is starting to look like the diagram of an incestuous group of teenagers. And today, that web got one more strand, as Yahoo and Twitter announced a partnership that will bring the two companies closer together.

The deal comes on the heels of this morning's revelation that Twitter will be soon unveiling an advertising platform, which means more tweets seen in more places, and therefore more revenue.


Sponsor

The Los Angeles Times quotes Twitter co-founder Bizz Stone on the significance of the deal.

"The information in one single tweet can travel light years farther with this Yahoo integration," Stone said in a statement. "Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most."

According to a press release by Yahoo, the deal will bring Twitter's content to Yahoo's network of nearly 600 million people worldwide. For Yahoo, this brings Twitter to the table where it had already seated next to social network giant Facebook, but we think this might be an even better deal for Twitter.

The press release breaks down the partnership into three key areas. First, Twitter feeds will be available across Yahoo, from the home page to mail and beyond. Yahoo's users will also be able to update Twitter and share content directly from Yahoo. Search results will also contain tweets as well as a number of Yahoo media properties, such as news, finance, entertainment and sports.

Of course, while we see this as a big deal for Twitter, our recent conversation with Gigya CEO David Yovanno tells us that for Yahoo to stay in the game, deals like this are necessary. Social networks are quickly becomming bigger traffic-driving forces than search engines, so integration is key.

Kara Swisher, of the All Things Digital blog, explains that Twitter's content will be woven in throughout Yahoo's content as part of Yahoo's "

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