Thursday, September 10, 2009

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Facebook Turns To Twitter For Inspiration Again, Brings @ Tagging To Status Updates Top
Facebook has launched an interesting feature today: the ability to tag friends in status updates and other messages from the publisher. As with Twitter, you use the “@” symbol followed by your friend’s name (or the name of a Facebook Page or Group) to tag something, but the message shows up without the symbol and just a link to the person’s profile. The ability to “Tag” friends was one that Facebook popularized with its tagging feature in photos years ago. As Facebook notes in its blog post announcing the new “@” feature, tagging is one of the most popular features on the social network. I’d venture to say it’s probably one of the early features that made Facebook’s social technology so distinct. But Twitter, or at least its users, pioneered the “@” functionality to tag friends, which has long been missing from Facebook’s status updates. That said, there are some key differences both from a UI perspective and in the way tagging on Facebook works. Unlike Twitter, where you have to memorize your friends’ usernames (or use a third party client that features auto-complete), on Facebook when you begin typing in a friend’s name following the “@” symbol, you’ll see a drop-down menu that will let you choose from your list of friends, groups, events and applications. And while @replies on Twitter are often used for conversations, on Facebook the use-case is a bit different. When you tag someone in a status update, that person will receive a notification and a Wall post, which links the person to your status update. Similar to tagging in photos, the person has the option of removing the tag. Inside Facebook reports that the feature will be rolling slowly over the next few weeks. Facebook has been steadily growing its social network (at a faster rate that Twitter) and made a recent acquisition that is representative of Facebook’s aggressive tactics in the steady battle with Twitter. While the “@” feature addition to Status Updates maybe small in comparison to the acquisition of FriendFeed, it’s significant when it comes to the bigger picture of the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Twitter. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Skimble Helps You Plan And Track Your Gym Workouts and Outdoor Activities Top
For anyone who has wanted to run a marathon, hike a particularly challenging mountain or even simply learn a new sport, it can be helpful to plan and track your activities and progress to increase efficiency and productivity. Skimble is hoping to be the online destination for anyone who wants to plan and track an activity or workout goal. Skimble’s online tools let you discover activities, by giving you information on popular outdoor active trips, i.e. a hiking trip to Lake Tahoe; and gym workouts, i.e. indoor rock climbing. You can join one of these trips or you can create your own. When you create a trip, you can create a feed of news and updates about the trip and share the page with other friends. The feed also pulls in any Tweets about the subject of the trip. So if you are planning a trip to Tahoe, Skimble will pull in Tweets about rock climbing, hiking or canoeing in Tahoe. Once you create an activity or trip, you can begin tracking your progress. The tracking tool, which is particularly compelling, is easy to use and actually makes tracking a goal or activity really simple. Whereas many activity tracking tools on the web focus on weight loss, Skimble focuses on helping you create a calendar and schedule of your activities, and will chart out your performance based upon time spent on the activity. You can also compare your progress to a friend’s on the site. The focus is less on the weight loss and more on the accomplishment of finishing an activity. Skimble, which was incubated in The Funded’s Founder Institute, attracted over 1,000 outdoor enthusiasts that have praised the ability to track and compare their accomplishments. You can also share your trips and activities with Facebook via Facebook Connect on the site. Competitors to Skimble include DailyBurn. And Skimble plans to release a mobile app to let users plan and track on the go. Unsurprisingly, Skimble’s founders are both techies and experienced mountain climbers. In fact, Skimble’s co-founder Maria Ly is a former gymnast, who has extraordinary flexibility and strength. See her jaw-dropping performance in this video: Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
South Carolina's Joe Wilson Faces The Wrath Of The Web Top
It seems just about everyone on the web is talking about Joe Wilson, the Republican Congressman from South Carolina (yes, our favorite state ) who accosted President Obama during his speech to Congress yesterday. His name has been the top trending topic on Twitter going on its second day now — and that’s pretty impressive considering yesterday saw the return of Steve Jobs and a range of new Apple releases, and today has some big Android announcements . And now Wilson has his own awesome site. Joe Wilson Is Your Pre-Existing Condition couldn’t be more simple: Take Wilson’s name and insert it into some kind of problem the world faces. For example, “Joe Wilson Spit In Your Beer”, “Joe Wilson Used Your Tax Dollars To Pay His Medical Bills”, and “Joe Wilson Hit Your Car In The Parking Lot And Drove Off Without Leaving A Note”. Then of course they veer into the humorously absurd:  “Joe Wilson Ate The Last Slice Of Pizza”, “Joe Wilson Hit On Your Mom”, and my favorite, “Joe Wilson Shit In Your Kitchen”. The idea behind the site is clear: In the lower right hand corner there is the message, “YOU DISSED AMERICA; WE’LL DIS YOU RIGHT THE FUCK BACK. HELP RUN JOE WILSON OUT OF OFFICE”. The last part links to a donation site for Rob Miller, the man running against Wilson for his seat in 2010. Since I loaded up Wilson’s result on Twitter just 15 minutes ago, there are already another 20,000 tweets. That’s fairly insane. Obviously some of it is spammers latching on to the trend, but much of it is pure hatred for the Congressman. The lesson? If you’re going to disrespect the President and Congress, expect to be disrespected a thousand fold on the web. Watch the original video below (key part is about 2:13 in): [via LauraGlu ] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Zynga v. Playdom: The Documents Top
This is an update to our post earlier today on the Zynga/Playdom trade secrets litigation . Below are the three documents relevant to the case. The first below is the original complaint that outlines the entire lawsuit. The second is a memorandum authored by Zynga supporting their request for a temporary restraining order, the third is the order granting Zynga a temporary restraining order against Playdom and the other defendants. The documents are below: Zynga’s Complaint – MPA for EX Part App – Order Granting EX Parte App – Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Instant Karma! Reddit's New Real-Time Karma Tracking App Top
One of the best features of Reddit that differentiates it from competitors is its karma system. Simply put, it’s an easy way to distinguish the submissions and comments from good users versus the bad ones. It’s also kind of a game to play. And as with all games, it’s more fun to play in real-time. And Reddit now has a app to do just that. RedditAddict Lite is a new desktop application run on Adobe Air, that allows you to track both your regular Reddit karma and your comment karma in real-time. Both are displayed on a graph with different color lines, and you can set the data points to tone your graph. It also easily allows you to take a screengrab of your graph for those moments when your karma is peaking. Also included in the app in a small dashboard widget that shows your karma stats, as well as if you have any Reddit mail messages pending. It also allows you to set a series of quirky sounds that are triggered based on movement of your graph. Kind of silly? Yes. Kind of pointless? Maybe, but if you’re a RedditAddict like the name implies, something like this should be right up your alley. Bigger picture: This is the second Reddit application (after the Firefox plug-in Socialite) that promises 75% of any donations made off of the landing page to the developer of the app. (Reddit contracts these apps out to third-party developers .) While the app itself is free to download and use, the Reddit apps page features a large “Support the developer” button, where users are encouraged to leave tips if they enjoy the app. Find RedditAddict Lite here . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Zynga Accuses Playdom of Stealing Trade Secrets; Judge Issues Temporary Restraining Order Top
There’s no love lost between competing social gaming platforms Zynga and Playdom . Earlier this year Zynga sued Playdom over what they called misleading ads. That litigation appears to remain outstanding, but Playdom has since changed their advertising practices. Now there’s a much more serious dispute between the companies. Yesterday Zynga filed a lawsuit against Playdom and a number of other defendants in California state court. Among the many causes of action: misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, breach of the duty of loyalty, tortious interference with contracts, tortious interference with existing and prospective economic advantage and unfair competition. The defendants include four ex-Zynga, now Playdom employees as well. What this boils down to: Playdom has allegedly hired away a number of Zynga employees, and those employees have allegedly taken key information and documents from Zynga and have given them to Playdom. Among the most important documents that were supposedly stolen: The Zynga Playbook: The Zynga Playbook is literally the recipe book that contains Zynga’s “secret sauce,” and its contents would be invaluable to a competitor like Playdom. The Zynga Playbook constitutes a collection in one document of many of the most material non-public commercially valuable concepts, techniques, know-how and best practices for developing successful and distinctive social games. The Playbook is the result of years of testing, development, trial and error, analyzing customer behavior, game behavior, optimizing past successful techniques, and collective know-how that Zynga has spent millions of dollars and more than tens of thousands of man hours developing and devising, and which could only be compiled by developing and deploying successful games over a period of years to millions of them. In the hands of a competitor like Playdom, this document alone creates huge exposure to Zynga as it breaks down in detail and memorializes the company’s key and collective efforts to develop and fit games to the social networking platform in the most successful manner. It is a “how-to” manual that belongs to Zynga. Zynga accuses Playdom of actively soliciting Zynga employees to turn over proprietary information: …Playdom recruiter Jennifer Farris emailed Defendant Martha Sapeta, a then-current Zynga employee who owed her undivided loyalty and best efforts to Zynga, with a “small assignment” as part of an upcoming and lengthy recruiting and interview meeting. Playdom instructed Defendant Sapeta to “compare and contrast” the precise Zynga games she was working on to corresponding competing Playdom games. Sapeta was offered “bonus points” if she could “propose a feature in [Playdom's competing] game that [she][thought] whould improve [user] growth.” Playdom even suggested the feature “can be a straight up ripoff from our competitors [i.e., Zynga's] app,” but with the caveat that Sapeta would “still have to explain in detail” how the ripped off features would work in Playdom’s competing game. Specifically, Zynga accuses an ex-employee of downloading 70 files to a USB storage device two weeks before leaving to join Playdom. Three of the files were proprietary Zynga documents. Another defendant mailed 22 proprietary documents to his personal email account before departing to Playdom. The Zynga Playbook was among them. The judge granted the request for a temporary restraining order against Playdom and the other defendants. Those defendants are prohibited from destroying any of the files allegedly misappropriated. Neither company would comment on this story. Update: The relevant court documents are here . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Facebook Open Sources FriendFeed's Real-Time Tech Top
When Facebook acquired FriendFeed last month, everyone knew it was getting some pretty impressive technology along with the obvious talent in the company. What people probably didn’t expect is that Facebook would open source a portion of it. But that’s what they’re doing today with the release of Tornado, a real-time web framework for Python, onto the web. Another new Facebook addition , Dave Recordon, explains the open-sourcing today on Facebook’s Developers blog. That Recordon is the one doing this post isn’t all that surprising given his central role in the open source community. Here’s how he explains Tornado: Tornado is a relatively simple, non-blocking Web server framework written in Python, designed to handle thousands of simultaneous connections, making it ideal for real-time Web services. … While Tornado is similar to existing Web-frameworks in Python (Django, Google’s webapp, web.py), it focuses on speed and handling large amounts of simultaneous traffic. FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor has more on his own blog . He notes that in open sourcing Tornado, FriendFeed and Facebook hope that others will use it to build their own real-time web services. They have set up a demo of how it works at its most basic (commenting) here . As you can see, it looks a lot like the FriendFeed commenting system (pictured below). Taylor lays out three key parts of Tornado: All the basic site building blocks – Tornado comes with built-in support for a lot of the most difficult and tedious aspects of web development, including templates, signed cookies, user authentication, localization, aggressive static file caching, cross-site request forgery protection, and third party authentication like Facebook Connect. You only need to use the features you want, and it is easy to mix and match Tornado with other frameworks. Real-time services – Tornado supports large numbers of concurrent connections. It is easy to write real-time services via long polling or HTTP streaming with Tornado. Every active user of FriendFeed maintains an open connection to FriendFeed’s servers. High performance – Tornado is pretty fast relative to most Python web frameworks. We ran some simple load tests against some other popular Python frameworks, and Tornado’s baseline throughput was over four times higher than the other frameworks: But there’s more. Buried in Recordon’s explanation is the following: Tornado is a core piece of infrastructure that powers FriendFeed’s real-time functionality, which we plan to actively maintain . I’ve bolded the key part there. That would seem to suggest that Facebook is now committing to activity maintaining FriendFeed. While the FriendFeed co-founders have more or less said that the service would live on despite the Facebook deal, Facebook has been pretty mum on the topic up until now. Of course, Facebook could simply be saying that it will maintain the technology (for its own uses), and not the service. Next question: How long until Twitter starts using some components of Tornado? You can download and find out more about Tornado here . [photo is an altered version of the great Toronado bar logo] CrunchBase Information Facebook FriendFeed Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 

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