Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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10 Reasons to Buy a Kindle 2… and 10 Reasons Not To Top
Having used both Kindles 1 and 2, I thought it would helpful to list where the new Kindle excels and where it falters. The dead tree book will never die - I think it will even have more longevity and popularity than the boutique appreciation of vinyl records - but our generation will be the last to use "books" as our primary reading systems. Expect ebooks to hit colleges in perhaps five years and high schools and grade schools in about 7. That said, should you buy a Kindle now? Why and why not?
 
Mendeley Snags $2 Million In Early-Stage Funding For Research Paper Management Tool Top
Mendeley , makers of a desktop and web application designed to make it easier for academics to manage and discover relevant research papers on any topic, has raised $2 million in early-stage funding from some high-profile investors, including Stefan Glänzer , early seed investor in and former Chairman of Last.fm, former Executive VP of Digital Strategy and Business Development for Warner Music Group Alex Zubillaga and ASI , the investment vehicle of Skype’s former founding engineers. The connection with the popular social music network Last.fm doesn’t stop there, since the company is pushing to become the “Last.fm for research”, which means the startup essentially aims to enable academics to manage and sharing their research paper inventory and at the same time discover like-minded people and papers thanks to a recommendation and matching algorithm. I registered for the service and downloaded the Windows version of the desktop app (it’s available for Mac OSX and Linux too) to give it a whirl. First thing I noticed is that you can easily invite fellow academics from your network to join Mendeley based on existing accounts for LinkedIn, Gmail, Windows Live, etc. I also took note of the fact that your profile settings, which include information about your field of research, a CV, etc. automatically has you signed up for the company newsletter, which I think should be optional. My entirely fake public profile can be located here . The desktop app is actually quite nice: after installation, you can import PDF files using the tool’s “Automatic Medata Extraction” or import your existing library from EndNote XML, BibTeX or RIS files. Mendeley also features a Word Plugin which lets you insert citations and create formatted bibliographies in documents using Microsoft Word 2003/2007. Academics can also upload their own research papers and syncing files and information with the web-based version with just one click of the mouse. Mendeley also boasts features that let members connect with their peers online, and - taking a page from Facebook - the tool also features a newsfeed that displays newly shared or uploaded documents etc. Mendeley claims to have “scrobbled” data on almost 3 million research papers in just two months, so it’s likely to become one hell of a resource if growth continues and enough academics take notice. Similar services include Labmeeting (which we likened to a “social network for scientists” ), Academia.edu (which we likened to a “Geni for researchers” ) and Questia . If you know of any others, please share in comments. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Authors Guild Still Tilting at Text-To-Speech Windmill Top
Infingement. That's what Blount called Amazon's text-to-speech feature. Roy Blount, Jr. , president of the Authors Guild , wrote an op-ed in the NYT today about the Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature. Heavens to Betsy - we're still talking about this? I'm a writer. I'm writing a book. I want lots of sales and money. But I understand that technology is moving far faster than Blount and his buddies care to accept. The text-to-speech function on the Kindle 2 is just one of the features that will be included in an ebook reader from now until the end of time - it will never make sense not to embed one in the future. It doesn't infringe on audiobook sales unless you're crazy and dedicated enough to record the Kindle reading an entire book and then copy that MP3 file onto an iPod. At that point you can theoretically say you're creating a homebrew audio book.
 
Appcelerator Releases New Preview Of Open Source Developer Platform Titanium, Adds Bells And Whistles Top
This morning, Mountain View-based startup Appcelerator is taking the wraps off its second Preview Release for Titanium , an open-source developer platform meant to compete with Adobe AIR and the likes for building rich internet, mobile and desktop applications. Titanium PR2 comes with a number of new features that are worth taking a look at, like an extensible Module API and built-in support for Linux and a wide range of programming languages like Python, Ruby and JavaScript in addition to C++. More technical details are outlined on the company blog Appcelerant . The new release of the open developer platform, licensed under Apache Public License (version 2), can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux here . The release also includes a nifty tool dubbed Titanium Developer which groups a number of social media and communication services like Twitter, FriendFeed and an IRC chat module which is supposed to make it easier for the open-source developer community to connect and collaborate when using Titanium for building apps. Check out this screencast to see how it works. I have my doubts about Appcelerator being able to compete with more established players like Adobe with its cross-platform AIR runtime (at version 1.5.1 since yesterday), but it never hurts for developers to have alternatives, especially when they are open-source and as flexible as Titanium. The startup features a couple of demo applications you can play with, like Tweetanium (desktop Twitter client) and Playtanium (a desktop YouTube video player). I tested both (admittedly very basic) apps on my Windows Vista powered PC and they worked like a charm. Appcelerator recently raised $4.1 million in a Series A round led by Storm Ventures. Below are a couple of screenshots and a tutorial video on how to get started with Titanium. If you build an app with it, be sure to let us know! Titanium Developer: Getting Started from Appcelerator Video Channel on Vimeo . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Imagini Gets $13.5m To Work Out Your Personality With Pictures Top
UK start-up Imagini has secured a significant $13.5 million in a second round of funding (the first round was undisclosed). The additional investment comes from Horizons Ventures, NorthZone Ventures and Atomico. Imagini has an interesting technology called VisualDNA which effectively works out people’s personality types by presenting them with picture choices - instead of, say, asking users to type in their profile. The Flash-based quiz is not unlike a game, and can be quite addictive once you get going. The result is that Imagini says online retailers get a 37% uplift from customers after they get profiled. So whether you picked the Grand Torino over the Lamborghini really does say something about you. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
World Economic Forum Announces New Batch Of Young Global Leaders (Mark Zuckerberg, Chad Hurley, Kevin Rose And More) Top
The World Economic Forum has just published its annual list of Young Global Leaders, recognizing “between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world”. The list of honorees, besides celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin and F1 legend Michael Schumacher, includes a good number of people from the technology and Internet industry, so here’s a quick run-down of the names you might know: Mark Zuckerberg - founder and CEO of Facebook Kevin Rose - founder of Digg Chad Hurley - co-founder and CEO of YouTube Josh Silverman - CEO of Skype Michael Birch - founder and CEO of Bebo Premal Shah - President of Kiva Lisa Huddleson - Corporate Foundation Executive Director at Dell Vinny Lingham - CEO of Synthasite Paul Bassat - CEO of Seek Suranga Chandratillake - co-founder and CEO of blinkx Michael Cannon-Brooks - co-founder of Atlassian Andrej Nabergoj - co-founder and CEO of Noovo Matias de Tezanos - founder of HealthCare.com Kamal Quadir - founder of CellBazaar Ashok Vemuri - Senior VP, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies Habib Haddad - co-founder of Yamli Josh Spear - founding partner of Undercurrent For the full list, click here (PDF). Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2009 were chosen by a selection committee (PDF), chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, comprising 31 eminent international media leaders. The recently published list of active YGLs includes names like Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Tony Fadell (Apple) Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), John Battelle (Federated Media), Peter Thiel (Clarium Capital), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Uday Khemka (Sun), Tariq Krim (Jolicloud), Philipp Justus (PayPal), Lila Ibrahim (Intel), Esther Duflo and Kristin Forbes (MIT), Jack Ma Yun (AliBaba), Jorge Blanco (Avaya), Bill Nguyen (LaLa), Tero Ojanpera (Nokia), and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google App Engine Offers Pricing Plan Beyond Quotas; Grab A Free I/O Ticket To Celebrate Top
Google has released a new upgrade for its popular App Engine service that allows developers to pay to extend their application’s resource quotas beyond those that have historically been offered by the free service. According to Google this has been the platform’s most oft-requested feature, as developers with rapidly growing applications have been unable to expand beyond the set thresholds to meet demand. Developers will be able to set aside a specified amount of money each day, which will be distributed across fees related to CPU usage, bandwidth, storage space, and email (you keep any money that isn’t spent that day). For more details, check out the company’s blog post here . To coincide with today’s announcement, we’re giving away three more tickets to Google’s upcoming I/O event this May. If you’d like one, leave a comment below telling us how you’re going to use Google’s new premium quota extensions, and we’ll pick out the best ones. Be sure to use your real Email address so we can contact you directly. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
MySpace Inches Closer To Offering Full-Fledged Webmail Service Top
Last month we reported that MySpace was planning to launch a webmail service - a move that could instantly make it one of the web’s largest Email providers (provided a substantial portion of its users took advantage of the feature). Today we’ve received a number of tips that MySpace has introduced some new messaging features that indicate that the transition is well underway. Most notably, the site now allows users to send a message to multiple friends at once, as seen in the shot below. The feature works as advertised: as users begin typing their friends’ names, an autocomplete window opens with a list of matches. Each picture in the ‘To’ line is a link to that user’s MySpace profile, which makes it easier to confirm that you’re messaging the right friend. While the company wouldn’t comment on its webmail plans, MySpace has confirmed that the new feature launched today, and also detailed some of the other upgrades to the site’s messaging functionality. The site now offers an at-a-glance view of your sent messages so you can see if your friends have read them (frankly I find this feature to be a little creepy, but it’s not uncommon in standard Email clients). Users will also be able to attach video files to their outgoing messages. Of course, while the site’s interface may be gradually moving towards that of most webmail clients, it is still missing one key feature: users don’t have a dedicated name@myspace.com Email address yet, so they can’t receive incoming mail. But as we noted last month, the company has started moving its corporate Email addresses from name@MySpace.com to the domain MySpace-inc.com, paving the way for users to occupy the name@MySpace.com addresses. We should note that Facebook has also been slowly adding features to its messaging platform. While we haven’t heard anything directly related to a Facebook webmail application, the site clearly strives to be a central hub for social communication on the web, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it has similar aspirations (especially if MySpace’s experiment goes well). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Microsoft TechFest: 'Surface' Upgrade Projects Images Beyond The Screen Top
We’re big fans of of Microsoft Surface, the interactive multitouch tabletop that acts a bit like an iPhone on a much larger scale (though the technology used is completely different). In fact, we like the Surface so much that we’re one of the few private organizations to actually have one. So today when I saw some new technology may well work itself into a future version of the innovative product, I was more than a little enthused. The new technology showcased today allows Surface-like devices to effectively project two different images in the same space. One of these projections is shown on the display as it normally would be, while the other is projected through it, so that it appears on anything that is held above the Surface (watch the video if this doesn’t make sense - it’s very cool). The technology works by rapidly alternating which of the images are projected at a speed that makes the transition undetectable to the human eye. The technology can also be applied to a basic hand held electronic viewfinder that can shift the user’s perspective of the Surface image in real-time (again, see the video). Note : It is tough to see the projected images in the standard-def YouTube video, so make sure to click on the ‘HD’ button to watch the high definition version. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ginx Helps You Find And Follow The Experts on Twitter Top
Ginx , the third-party interface for Twitter that makes it easier to share news with friends, has added a new feature that organizes experts into groups so you follow their ongoing commentary on your favorite topics. Each group on Ginx is created and administered by a single owner who determines who the experts are in a particular field or category. For example, here’s a group of journalists who are focused on covering Apple news. It’s run by the user mirthlab and members include John Gruber and Arnold Kim . Currently there are 11 groups in total on Ginx, and all of them are listed in this simple directory . The others include one about China and another about Arizona politics . If you’re interested in hearing what the experts in a particular group have to say, you can become a follower of that group with a single click. All of the tweets from the group’s members will then show up in your Ginx timeline, regardless of whether their tweets are related to the group’s topic or not. When asked about whether it would be better to just show followers those tweets that are relevant to a group’s topic, co-founder Pierre Omidyar insisted that getting the whole stream of tweets from group members actually lets you learn more about who the members are as people. And in turn, this makes the news and commentary you get from them more personal. This new groups feature is a natural addition to Ginx’s core functionality, since it advances the notion that Twitter should be used to learn and educate others about the world. It does pose the risk of information overload, however, since by joining just a few groups, you’re expanding the number of people who contribute to your timeline considerably. In anticipation of this problem, there are checkboxes next to the timeline that let you temporarily remove all tweets from a particular group. But something tells me that most users will still want to be part of only one or two groups at a time, lest they have trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. Only select users have the power to create groups, although I’m told that this will change soon so that anyone can set up their own. Everyone can start following the existing groups today, and if you’re not already a Ginx user, the first 100 users to sign up with this code will get in: 842A11AC93EA. Update: We’ve created a group with TechCrunch employees that you can follow. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Microsoft TechFest: Qik Meets Photosynth With Impressive Panoramic Mobile Movies Top
I’m here in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft TechFest 2009, where Microsoft is showcasing many of the projects its researchers around the world. The event is filled with impressive demos covering diverse topics ranging from advanced user interfaces to improving computer-based learning in developing countries. We’ll be posting videos throughout the day, the first of which is a demonstration that essentially combines the mobile video broadcasting of services like Qik with Microsoft’s image and video stitching technology that can be seen in its impressive Photosynth product. The technology can take multiple live video streams focusing on the same subject (as you might find at a concert), and stitches them together to create one large panoramic video. For a full demo, see the video below. It’s important to note that while many of these technologies are extremely impressive, they may not be seen in consumer devices for quite some time (if ever). Still, given the fact that products like Microsoft’s Surface emerged from similar research projects, these may well be a window into the future what our gadgets will soon be able to pull off. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Paid Search Just Got Visual: SearchMe Launches AdView Beta (Free Ads For First 500 Signups) Top
What happens when you make paid search ads both relevant and visual? Searchme , the search engine startup which presents results as a stack of full-page previews that you can flip through, is hoping to find out with the beta launch of AdView. Its first foray into advertising, AdView is SearchMe’s version of AdWords, except that instead of selling of paid text links it will be interspersing into its results clickable previews of entire Webpages, videos, or other visual advertising. If you are an advertiser and want to try it out, SearchMe is giving a free trial to the first 500 companies or individuals that sign up here . That’s right, you get to run a free ad campaign on SearchMe for 30 days. To see how this works, search for “Ralph Lauren” and if you flip through to the third result, it will be an ad that shows a landing page for its fall collection. In other words, the Website becomes the ad itself. This approach is similar to what StumbleUpon does, with ads placed in every 20 or so Stumbles. But the ad unit can also be a YouTube video which can be played without leaving SearchMe. For instance, check out the third result when you search for “Mac” (SearchMe inserted one of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads for demonstration purposes). This could potentially be a very effective form of advertising. It is almost like a magazine ad where the ad is a Website. Advertisers who create visually appealing landing pages I suspect will do better. And it is also a potentially powerful way to target video ads, combining keyword targeting with a TV-like viewing experience. (Check out SearchMe’s own video commercial embedded below, which it plans to run as a TV spot) SearchMe is not huge by any means, but it provides a nice sandbox to experiment with new types of advertising. Quantcast shows some decent growth over the past six months to about 3 million visitors in the U.S. That is certainly large enough to test the ROI for visual paid search. And its organic growth suggests that the idea could catch on. Certainly, it doesn’t hurt that Apple is training consumers to become comfortbale with the page-flipping metaphor. One of the key features of its just-released version of the Safari browser is a similar Coverflow-like treatment of bookmarked pages and browsing history. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
China's Social Network QZone Is Big, But Is It Really The Biggest? Top
Tencent , China’s largest Internet portal mostly known to us for its hugely popular instant messenger product QQ , published an updated report on the user numbers of its social networking service QZone last week. The report was only available in Chinese, but the folks over at Web2Asia were kind enough to translate it. And if the self-reported numbers are not too much of an exaggeration, they’re nothing short of mind-blowing. Even taken with a healthy grain of salt, the stats Tencent are presenting deserve a mention: the report claims more than 200 million people were using QZone as of January 31, 2009, surpassing international players like Facebook (which recently announced 175 million registered users) and MySpace. For the sake of comparison, we took a look at the worldwide comScore stats for the aforementioned social networking services, but they only give you an overview of visitor numbers for QQ.com instead of QZone separately (which has its own subdomain). To be frank, we don’t even know if the comparison flies because we’re not sure where QQ the communication (IM) service ends and where QZone the social network begins. Going back to Tencent’s report, it states that about 150 million out of the total 200 million are actively contributing on Qzone by posting blogs, sharing photos, and interacting with other users. In Qzone, about 4 million users are supposedly uploading an average of 60 million photos every day. Furthermore, on February 9 the company’s instant messenger QQ reportedly recorded more than 50 million concurrent users. The numbers are so impressive that we dug a little deeper, stumbling upon a report on DataCenterKnowledge which also wonders if QZone is bigger than Facebook globally or not. The article points to Netcraft’s latest monthly web server survey , which this month started including the Qzone blogging service. Netcraft: “this month’s inclusion instantly makes the company the largest blog site provider in the survey , surpassing the likes of Windows Live Spaces, Blogger and MySpace.” Facebook is under-reported here because Netcraft's survey doesn't capture all the activity at social networks and instead zooms in on sites rather than users. Furthermore, QQ has more social networking services targeting various markets besides QZone. QQ Xiaoyou, a service targeting students in universities and high schools, has over 20 million registered users and it only officially launched in January, 2009 (it’s been in private test mode since June 2008). If QQ doesn’t operate the world’s largest social networking sites already, it will soon. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Reunion.com And Wink Morph Into MyLife.com Top
When Reunion.com and Wink announced their merger in early October 2008, the company indicated that it would be relaunching under a different brand name and with a completely overhauled website in early 2009. That day has finally come, and henceforth the merged companies will live on as MyLife . The website for Reunion.com already redirects to MyLife.com, while dedicated people search engine Wink still has its own web presence. MyLife, however, already integrates Wink’s technology, which means the new hybrid social platform is now a full-fledged search engine which not only finds people—thanks to aggregated search across social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace—but also helps visitors connect with them all on the same site. On its company presentation page , MyLife boasts that it can locate over 750 million online profiles via its search index today. Reunion.com has been getting decent traffic lately, rising to 15.4 million U.S. unique visitors and 18.2 million worldwide last month, according to comScore. Google Trends also paints a picture of continued growth, albeit almost exclusively for North America. That basically means MyLife is now effectively the fourth largest social network in the U.S. after Facebook, MySpace and Classmates.com, leaving behind a bunch of more talked-about companies like Bebo, LinkedIn, Digg and Imeem, if you compare comScore data for January 2009. According to Founder and CEO Jeffrey Tinsley , Reunion grew 92% last year and its revenues for 2008 was somewhere in the vicinity of $52 million. Up until now, the company has raised $26.4 million in venture capital over two rounds, and it has used $6 million of this capital to acquire five companies to date (Wink, GoodContacts, MyAddressBook, Planet Alumni, and HighSchoolAlumni.com). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
TC50's plaYce Launches Real-World, 3D Game Platform as a Service (500 Invites) Top
plaYce which showcased at last year’s Techcrunch50 is today announcing the beta launch of its Game-Platform-as-a-Service, aimed at assisting game developers bring high-quality 3D game play right into the browser. Games in plaYce are based on 3D renderings of real cities such as San Francisco and New York. 500 private beta invites for both users and developers are available exclusively to TechCrunch readers here . Casual games on the Web are quite bland when compared to “Tripple-A Games”—high budget titles typically produced by game studios such as EA. The type of games developed and/or distributed by the likes of Zynga, SGN, Kongregate or Oberon just don’t cut it for “real” gamers which are used to superior high-quality game play and graphics. plaYce tackles this matter by allowing high-quality games to be streamed into the browser. The company claims it delivers quick-engagement by initiating play within a minute for games ranging from 300MB up to a few gigabytes in size. Granted, that is indeed quite a bit of time to wait for a game to load, however, the game quality is in a different league than the quality of current casual games (see the video embedded at the end of the post). Users are required to install a 7.7MB plug-in (the “plaYce player”) in order to play games utilizing plaYce’s technology. IE & Firefox are supported on PCs, with Linux and Mac coming soon I’m told. plaYce is targeting independent game developers who will be able to port existing games or build new ones from scratch. The company’s Game-Platform-as-a-Service includes: Game Streaming – Where the user’s current and predicted point of view in the game define what piece of data needs to be upload to the client. Graphics Engine – In-browser complex rendering including soft shadows, shaders, lights, particle effects, etc. Game Arenas - Currently San Francisco, Manhattan and a few large open terrain areas, with two major European cities and Hong Kong on the way. Game developers can also model 3D arenas in any standard 3D modeling tool and then import it. Game arenas that “float in space” are also supported. Facebook & OpenSocial Integration – Allows users to import friends into games. Micro transaction & Virtual Goods – Game developers will be able to implement these in any game. In-game advertising – Provided through Massive and Double Fusion . Services – Game lobby, security, asset management, quality of service. Like any technology there are “performance envelops”… Game developers will have to be aware that the scenes are streamed and that there are hardware considerations (CPU, graphics card, etc.). Developers should also be aware that the plaYce API is written in C++, with the next version supporting Lua . The company’s business model will be based on micro-transactions, virtual goods, in-game ads, and rev-share with game developers. Developers will not be charged for the use of the platform. plaYce is showcasing its technology with Downtown Defender , a game it developed itself (it does not plan to enter the game production business). The company describes the game as: Downtown Defender brings the game mechanics of "Desktop Tower Defense" and the emotion of a realistic, giant monster movie into a tight, high impact experience. Using a Black Hawk Military helicopter, players will defend San Francisco from waves of massive creatures by dropping powerful gun turrets into strategic positions. Players will also need to rescue people on the ground from being eaten alive. The more people the player collects, the greater man power they will have for their turrets. Here’s a video of the game play: > Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Why Social Networks Are Good for the Kids Top
The other day I asked somewhat tongue-in-cheek whether Tom Friedman had ever visited Silicon Valley. Today, I'm wondering if Lady Greenfield has ever used a social networking site. The professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford and the director of the Royal Institution has the United Kingdom up in a tizzy about the idea that Facebook, Bebo and Twitter are warping their children's minds. She warned that social networking sites "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity." I'm not a psychologist, nor am I a parent, so let me start by saying she might be right that these sites are harmful in some cognitive way. But I think she's wrong to assume social networking is devoid of a "cohesive narrative and long-term significance." I can see where she's coming from, but like a lot of people who don't actually use these sites, she's missing a fundamental shift from Web 1.0 chat room days to Web 2.0 social networks: Real identity. We no longer "go to the Internet" to interact with some shadowy user name where we pretend to be someone we're not. Ok, maybe people on Second Life do. But sites like Facebook and Twitter are more about extending your real identity and relationships online. That's what makes them so addictive: The little endorphin rushes from reconnecting with an old friend, the ability to passively stay in touch with people you care about but don't have the time to call everyday. Facebook makes me a more considerate friend because I now remember people's birthdays. Over Geni, I stay in touch with my niece who I used to see once a year, but is now helping me map out our family tree. Via Twitter, my parents and in-laws know everything happening in my life so that when I call home, we have substantive conversations, not the awkward, "So…..whatcha been up to?" variety. In dozens of cases, these sites have made my real human relationships longer lasting and more substantive. They have actually given me a longer narrative, because it has rekindled friendships with dozens of people with whom I'd lost touch. Greenfield may well have a point when she argues that the young brain can't handle over-stimulation of "fast action and reaction." But isn't that the same argument we've been making about all technology and entertainment for decades now? Indeed, I’m of the MTV generation and all those fast cuts and blaring sounds were supposed to warp my brain long ago. (I know some TechCrunch commenters who would argue it has…) Everything has a trade off, and I'd argue the benefits in communications, education and collaboration of the Web far outweigh the negatives, and indeed give us greater benefits than we get from TV or Guitar Hero. I do share one concern with her: Whether over saturation online leads to a lack of empathy. This is something that is being debated throughout the blogosphere right now. As we all become public personas in our own sphere we're increasingly subject to the same abuse, scrutiny and haters that actual celebrities have to deal with. Such anonymous venom is, after all, why you are reading a post from me on TechCrunch right now. But I'm hopeful that the direction social networking is headed in is the answer to this, not the problem. As more of our social graphs move online, via Twitter or Facebook, the more the same social pressures of the real world come to bear. Compare anonymous YouTube comments with Twitter comments. Generally, Twitter is more kind and substantive, especially among users who Twitter under their real names. Now compare that to comments on Facebook. Almost all of the comments on someone's photo, video, status are supportive and empathetic, because the site has mimicked real world relationships and with that real world pressures. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
12Seconds Teams With TweetDeck, Enhances Third Party API Top
12seconds.tv , the ‘ video Twitter ‘ that allows users to send brief video clips counting twelve seconds in length, has announced that is now fully integrated into popular Twitter client Tweetdeck , which will now allow users to both record and receive 12seconds messages (previously they had only been able to receive messages). The site is also going to begin allowing third party sites and applications to integrate 12seconds recording functionality through an API (as with TweetDeck, they previously had been unable to record messages). Developers will need to request a key to access the API, and will gradually be allowed to access the system over the next two weeks. The news marks a significant win for 12seconds, as it will instantly help expose it to the many TweetDeck users, many of whom are considered Twitter ‘power-users’ and are thus more likely to be interested in this kind of rich media sharing. Other services that have also been integrated into TweetDeck include TwitScoop , which tracks hot trending topics on Twitter in real-time, and StockTwits , a Twitter-based community revolving around stocks and investments. Loïc Le Meur’s Seesmic is behind TweetDeck competitor Twhirl , so it’s worth noting that the latter Twitter desktop client already offered integration with a video conversation service. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Sedo Pushes For More U.S. Domain Parking Business With RevenueDirect Acquisition Top
Online domain name marketplace Sedo has acquired RevenueDirect , a domain parking and monetization service, from its parent company and registrar Dotster . Sedo, itself owned by the German internet marketing and media company AdLINK Group , is pushing for a bigger foothold inside the United States as it does in the rest of the world. As DomainNameWire points out, the deal makes sense because Sedo is a significant Google advertising partner across the globe, while RevenueDirect has a similarly strong relationship with the search and online advertising giant in the U.S. Sedo also closed a strategic partnership with Dotster to further integrate its services into their registration and inventory management solutions. The financial terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Happy Kindle 2 Day! Top
We should be getting our review units in any minute. Is there anything in particular that you want to know? First, check out this and this then leave your questions in comments. Thanks! Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Groups Page On Gmail Shows Adult Material Amidst Serious Outage Top
It’s bad enough for Google that businesses and consumers across the globe are being left without web access to Gmail for hours , but to add insult to injury someone hacked the created a Google Groups page on Gmail (link NSFW) at the worst possible time, adding images that leave nothing to the imagination as well links to adult content elsewhere on the net on top of the page. Update: per comments, this is not an official Google group but a user-generated one most likely deliberately set up now to take advantage of the fact Google has other things on its mind right now than checking up and moderating new groups on the subject of Gmail. Title edited. That said, this is the very first result that shows up when you search for ‘Gmail down’ so they might wanna take a look at this quickly. Update 2: someone at the Googleplex just did and deleted the group, which was up for at least 25 minutes. Update 3: weird, it dissappeared for a while but now you’re able to access it anyway after a warning message. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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