The latest from TechCrunch
- The Onion Beats Investigative Journalism On Google News
- AT&T iPhone 3G and 3G S officially getting MMS on September 25
- Why TechCrunch Is Not Coming to Brazil After All
- Producteev Now Lets You Crowdsource Your Tasks On Twitter
| The Onion Beats Investigative Journalism On Google News | Top |
| Sometimes I actually feel sorry for old media. Blogs are taking all the page views and don’t have the massive cost overhead of newspapers and magazines. AOL is gobbling up magazine and other media writers by the hundreds . And today I see this article talking about Google News Spotlight , which focuses on that supposedly last bastion of old media - investigative journalism. The stuff that’s “too hard” for blogs to do . But in a world where old media can’t keep up with breaking news, presumably longer investigative articles can be their safe place: The Spotlight section of Google News is updated periodically with news and in-depth pieces of lasting value. These stories, which are automatically selected by our computer algorithms, include investigative journalism, opinion pieces, special-interest articles, and other stories of enduring appeal. And what’s a good example of a special-interest article with “enduring appeal?” The Onion, a satire website which is currently the top story on Spotlight. This article beats out everything else that old media investigative journalism can muster right now. It’s just too bad Google News isn’t linking to the Daily Show yet. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| AT&T iPhone 3G and 3G S officially getting MMS on September 25 | Top |
| After months of speculation (and frustration) MMS for the iPhone 3G and 3G S is officially arriving on September 25, AT&T has confirmed. This is a full 3 days after summer officially ends (AT&T’s original deadline was “late summer”) as our own MG pointed out earlier today , but like a lot of things with Apple/AT&T, better late than never. AT&T posted the following comments on its Facebook page : An Update on iPhone MMS for our Mobility Customers We know many of our iPhone customers are eager for an update on our rollout schedule for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). We've been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches – and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day. We know that iPhone users will embrace MMS. The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone's multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One. We appreciate your patience as we work toward that end. We're riding the leading edge of smartphone growth that's resulted in an explosion of traffic over the AT&T network. Wireless use on our network has grown an average of 350 percent year-over-year for the past two years, and is projected to continue at a rapid pace in 2009 and beyond. The volume of smartphone data traffic the AT&T network is handling is unmatched in the wireless industry. We want you to know that we're working relentlessly to innovate and invest in our network to anticipate this growth in usage and to stay ahead of the anticipated growth in data demand, new devices and applications for years to come. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Why TechCrunch Is Not Coming to Brazil After All | Top |
| Right about now I should be leaving for the airport. In some 24 hours I'd be landing in Sao Paulo, picked up by my driver for the next two weeks and embarking on a jam-packed agenda, meeting with scores of South American startups and entrepreneurs. This was to be the latest in my series of travels for my book-in-progress about entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Brazil was the one place that no one in the Valley was pushing me to visit. In fact, it was the one place my husband had asked me not to visit, having heard many reports of kidnapping and violence. But I was resolutely convinced there was a world of exciting companies and stories and had been looking forward to the trip for months. In fact, I'd spent about four months studying Portuguese and planning the trip . I'm not on getting on that plane today though. Entrepreneurs who'd hoped to be written up on TechCrunch: Blame your government. American citizens have to have visas to get into Brazil, and my visa was "guaranteed" to get to me by last Friday, the day before my original flight was supposed to leave. That didn't happen and I was frustrated, but travel in emerging markets is never easy. So I agreed to push the trip back a week and absorb nearly $1,000 in extra costs associated with that, not to mention huge disruption to my schedule. (Bear in mind, this isn't TechCrunch money. I am self-funding research for this book and have to closely watch every dime.) All I asked was when I would absolutely get the visa by so I wouldn't have to reschedule things again. I was told yesterday, September 2. Guess what? No visa. I'm now told that it is definitely getting here Friday. Unfortunately, I have no reason to actually believe that's true at this point. I can't push my schedule back any more and comply with existing trips in September, October and November and frankly, having now spent thousands of dollars on a trip that's not happening, I wasn't interested in throwing more good money after bad. As a result, my trip to Brazil is canceled. I have paid the fees to switch the plane ticket to one to China in October. I paid an expediting service hundreds of dollars to ensure I'd be getting this visa, and clearly they've been getting an earful from me over the last week. If not for a phone call from the owner this morning finally agreeing to waive the fees I paid them, this post would largely be skewering them. But she assures me no one is getting into Brazil and her week has been even worse than mine. Apparently, the Brazilian government decided to switch to a new computer system for all of its consulate offices and only sent two computers to each office, and not the adequate software to process everything. So everyone has been in a holding pattern. Some consulates aren't promising any visas before 25 days; others won't even take an appointment with prospective travelers unless they show documents showing travel in the next 15 days. In fact my visa is the first one the processing firm will get back—that is, if they actually do get it today as promised. They've not only been screamed at by me, but loads of business travelers—and even a coach for a national soccer team who can't get in the country. It's particularly ironic given that the Brazilian government has recently hired the PR firm Fleishman Hillard to go around talking up its commitment to IT and entrepreneurship. You want foreign investment and attention, Brazil? Here's an idea: LET PEOPLE ENTER THE DAMN COUNTRY. You want to show your IT prowess? How about outfitting your consulates with computer systems that work? Or maybe rolling it out slowly so other offices could handle the overflow. Or training people on it first. The country should be embarrassed, and its businesses should be furious. I’m going to aim to try this whole Brazil thing again in December or January. It’s not the entrepreneurs’ or our readers’ fault this happened, and I still believe there are great stories in Brazil that I want to report. But when you’re harder to get into than China, it doesn’t bode well for foreign investment, Brazil. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Producteev Now Lets You Crowdsource Your Tasks On Twitter | Top |
| There are plenty of Web-based task management tools that let you track the progress of your work projects and collaborate with co-workers. Producteev founder Ilan Abehassera wants to go one better and help you “complete your task” by making it easy to ask your contacts and followers on Twitter for assistance. Producteev shows you a dashboard of different tasks you’ve set up, each in its own widget box which you can drag around and rearrange. For its commercial launch today, Producteev is introducing some new features. One is the ability to syndicate any task to Twitter or Facebook. So if you need a Web designer or sales person for a project, for example, you can create a task on Producteev and share that not only with your co-workers, but also publish it on Twitter. A link brings your Twitter followers back to a public page on Producteev for that specific task/message, where they can reply. All outside replies are brought into the Producteev activity stream for everyone in your work group to see. This is good, but it doesn’t go far enough, as you can’t reply via Producteev and have that reply appear on Twitter. Another new feature makes Producteev like a Friendfeed of productivity apps. It lets you bring in other streams of data from outside Producteev, including Slideshare, Scribd, Zoho, Twitter, and soon Google Docs, Google Reader, and Yammer (yes, it competes with Yammer on the communication stream, but Producteev is more about task management). So you can automatically see when someone on your team adds a new presentation to Slideshare, edits a doc, or shares an article. There is also now a timeline/calendar view, which comes in handy since every task can be assigned a due date. (The other views are a dashboard grid that is similar to Netvibes or iGoogle, and a straight, chronological activity stream). Workers can now generate reports based on their tasks in progress and completed, which they can show to employers to prove they’ve been working ( oDesk anyone? ). Soon Producteev will add graphs as well for productivity tracking at a glance. Other upcoming features on the product roadmap include integration with Meebo Community IM for chat functionality, the ability to export deadlines and reminders to iCal, Google Calendar, and Outllook, an OpenSocial application on Xing, and a JoliCloud app. Producteev is gradually becoming a fully-featured online productivity and collaboration tool. I would compare it to WizeHive , another great online task management tool with a slightly different set of features. Producteev is seed funded, and recently raised $180,000 in angel money from a group including Fotolia president Oleg Tscheltzoff. The service is free for up to 3 users, and then starts at $19/ month up to 10 users. The top Gold membership is $99/month for 100 users. Different pricing applies to university students, another target market. We’re giving away 10 Gold subscriptions for one year to whoever adds the best comments below about their greatest productivity challenge or suggestions for new features. Abehassera will pick the best 10 and respond in comments. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
CREATE MORE ALERTS:
Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted
Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope
Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more
News - Only the news you want, delivered!
Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more
Weather - Get today's weather conditions
| You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. |
No comments:
Post a Comment