Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Webshots is CNet's outreach to college students
Webshots is going to let folks with the .edu on their emails get social with photos. This happens to be a huge audience, too, and one that MySpace is colonizing at a fast pace.
Webshots looks like a less hip flickr and has both a free membership and a monthly charge membership (flickr charges by the year for its premium membership).
The ads will be aimed at the precious demo (18-24) on the .edu service. I will probably sign up and try it, but flickr is so satisfactory and easy to use, there is a disincentive to fool around with a new program.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Cyworld USA acting like Brigadoon
Cyworld USA was up and you sign up for the beta. But now its closed. You can see their page at http://us.cyworld.com/Mashable* » Cyworld US Launches - Will It Topple MySpace?
The discussion notes that it has a huge potential to make money, but Mashable speculates that it will target a demographic younger than MySpace or Facebook.
As I noted about Cyworld when I saw a demo at their headquarters in South Korea, they charge for everything--that is any of customization. You can't make or upload your own avatars or backgrounds. No, you must pay.
It could gain a big mind hold with young and possibly with groups like seniors or stay-at-home moms.
Here is another post about from Sunday Apr. 3, 2006 that shows a screengrab:
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008926.html
DNA - India - From WiFi hotspots to WiFi cities - Daily News & Analysis
Wifi comes to India, but USA frets about it. With telcos trying to bully congress via lobbyists to outlaw municipal wifi, Bangalore and Pune will be the high tech job and money meccas that our cities could have been. DNA - India - From WiFi hotspots to WiFi cities - Daily News & Analysis: "Bangalore's tech edge is set to get sharper as city officials turn it into one giant wireless hotspot. A similar project is under way in Pune."
South Korea news for the rest of us...
The story is from the NYTimes, so registration is required. If you are in hurry, use bugmenot for a quick read.
The story details how South Korea has leveraged electronic communication technologies to push its society ahead of others with investments in technology like super-fast WiFi for everyone (called Wi-Bro) and by providing tech instruction for homemakers. CyWorld which is one of my blog's persistent threads is part of the mix.
South Korea, perhaps more than any other country, is transforming itself through technology. About 17 million of the 48 million South Koreans belong to Cyworld, a Web-based service that is a sort of parallel universe where everyone is interconnected through home pages. The interconnectivity has changed the way and speed with which opinions are formed, about everything from fashion to politics, technology and social science experts said.But now people are starting to notice that these infrastructure changes which change the way people communicate, and thus I would argue, the way they think, are starting to change the political scene. Again, from the NYTimes,
Two years ago, after the opposition-led National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo Hyun, a consensus began forming on the Internet that the move was politically motivated — two hours after the vote took place...there were mass street demonstrations. That hadn't been typical of South Korea, but as in the Phillipines and even in the more trivial moblogs, everyone is connected and they can move together swiftly. The downside, is the hounding of folks like "dog-poop girl" which I've detailed previously, but not the schools have incorporated "IT Ethics" into junior and senior high school. Oh and all those afraid of wild teens and MySpace, they also teach "Healthy Mobile Phone Culture" and "Protecting Personal Privacy" to kids. Gee, why didn't we think of that? And what is coming next? Networked robots for home and public spaces like the Post Office. Go visit there if you have the chance, it is quite interesting.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Saturday's Morning Digest
Today I am going to try something new. I've installed a new "widget" that let's me write blog entries from my Mac "Dashboard." This should let me post about several stories that I think are related or have some connection in one entry. The way blogger or other software works, it's easier to post about single sites.
Saturday picks: There is trouble in Nepal for journalists. According to this story,
King Gyanendra, a tyrant who on February 1, 2005, thrust the remote South Asian nation into a communications dark age. Telephone lines were cut, mobile phone service was shut down and Internet access was blocked. Dozens of FM radio stations and community newspapers were closed or forbidden to report on the royal coup. Outspoken leaders in the Federation of Nepalese Journalists were arrested. Many editors went into hiding.Dinesh Wagle, a reporter for the Kantipur Daily, the country's leading newspaper, got blogging and is a sort of leader for a cadre of journalists who are using Internet to get around the news lock-down. Of course the fact that Nepal has a low rate of literacy means their impact on the general population is lessened, but the Reporters without Borders organization recognized their extraordinary efforts to keep the news going in the face of a communication blackout by the King. From serious to frivolous finds Verizon getting fined for its chalk sidewalk ads around Washington, D.C. To advertise its phonebook, Verizon hired a contractor to spray water-soluble chald messages on D.C. sidewalks. But in D.C. where grafitti is a problem, this is prohibited unless you have a mayoral order.
"It's harder and harder to catch consumers' attention, so many companies, including us, are turning to nontraditional advertisements," she said. "At this point, of course, I don't think we'll be trying it again."From the if you don't know about it, it can't hurt you department Researcher and professor Edward Felten who was involved in the weird controversy brought on the by Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) where he was prohibited from presenting his academic research because it involved encryption schemas that the big media companies wanted to use to prevent copying is in the DCMA frey again. Sony recently had a bad code day with its rootkit idea. Felten and his group discovered the problem but feared that if they disclosed it, they'd be sued, so consumers were at risk because of the DCMA. Lobbyists for the industry argue that the DCMA must stand as is, while consumers stand to lose. The big question seems to be "Why on earth are we putting cybersecurity in the hands of copyright lawyers?" The all MySpace, all the time department reports trouble in the space.
MySpace assigns roughly 90 employees, a third of its workforce, to the task of monitoring the safety and security of members, Dudeck said. Using search and algorithm technologies, MySpace employees will review information for such inconsistencies as claiming to be a 14-year-old member while putting information in a profile about a 7th grade teacher and class.Tags:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)