Facebook’s Advertising Rate Cards Unveiled!

A minimum $50k investment. I haven’t done a lot of checking around to see how that compares with other sites but it’s certainly going to keep out the small website operator. Guess I won’t be advertising my blog on it anytime soon.

From the article
The Facebook rate cards have been leaked from a Facebook insider, directly addressing the myth that Facebook has continually perpetrated, indicating that a rate card never existed to begin with.

Now the evidence indicates otherwise, and people are speculating in a more narrow sense about the financial wheels that are spinning in regards to how much Facebook generates on a yearly basis. That has of course spilled over to the overall valuation of Facebook as well. Are the numbers right on? The leaked rate cards have presented some rather flat rates for things like sponsored groups, which will cost you $50,000 with a three month required commitment.
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If AT&T Ran The Highway System...

This article has summed up AT&T beautifully. Mind you AT&T are not the only company who would act in this way. So lets all pray that AT&T never get to run the highway system.

From the article
If AT&T ran the highway system, things would be different. Only AT&T-approved cars would be allowed on the roads, all of which would be toll roads.

Drivers would have to prepay their tolls, based on the estimated number of miles they expected to drive. Those who drove fewer miles than estimated would get no refund; those who drove more would be charged for the overage at a higher rate.

The AT&T-approved Apple iCar would be limited to a top speed of 30 mph. Sales people in AT&T car showrooms would have no idea how the iCar operated.

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Surfing at Work? Join the Club

I have to admit I fall into this group to. The Internet has become such a huge part of society I think organisations just need to accept it.

From the article
Americans who feel bored and underpaid do work hard -- at surfing the Internet and catching up on gossip, according to a survey that found U.S. workers waste about 20 percent of their working day.

An online survey of 2,057 employees by online compensation company Salary.com found about six in every 10 workers admit to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day.

Personal Internet use topped the list as the leading time-wasting activity according to 34 percent of respondents, with 20.3 percent then listing socializing with co-workers and 17 percent conducting personal business as taking up time.
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Google Will Kill Microsoft

Microsoft has totally lost the plot. Google seem to have a clear plan and direction and are generally delivering what the consumer wants. Microsoft are not going to disappear anytime soon but they need to change.

From the article
Steve Ballmer says Microsoft has "no choice" but to embrace the web app revolution. But his company plans to do so while keeping both feet firmly on the Windows desktop.

In a meeting with financial analysts on Thursday, the Microsoft CEO and his fellow executives revealed more details about the company's plans to offer web-based components for its desktop software applications. The long-term plan would see a major restructuring of the way Microsoft delivers software to its customers, but it's only a half-hearted move away from the desktop that illustrates how much work the company has to do to catch up to its fully web-minded competitors.
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7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing

Some cool tricks in this list. Most of them I hadn’t even heard of but I can see how useful they are. Which one do you think is the best? I like Image search one.

From the article
1. Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results so that they include only images of people. How is this useful? Well, it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations. You can perform this search by appending the code &imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.
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The End of Users

If we are not going to call them “users” then what are we going to call them? I can think of a few choice names but they are probably not suitable.

From the article
The more I write and read about social media, the more frustrated I get with the term "users."

When I started in the business twenty-mumble years ago, writing software manuals, people who used software were unusual (and had to be masochists). We spent a lot of time talking about users. The word user was helpful -- it helped us to keep in mind that there was a poor slob on the other end of what we were building.

Those times are long gone. We know users are important now. Disappoint them and you lose. So why do we still have to call them "users," which puts the emphasis on the technology they are using?
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iRazoo - Social Searching with Rewards and Prizes

Just what we need, another social networking/search site. Sigh! Oh but wait this one offers prizes. Cool! I will have that cute cuddly teddy bear that’s looking all lonely in the corner.

From the article
Are you unsatisfied with the results that a Google search turns up? Are too many of the links irrelevant or not at all useful? Well, if so, there is a new social search engine aiming to provide you with a new way to search. Sure there are Mahalo and Aftervote, but now there is iRazoo, which goes one step further… with prizes.

This new social search engine, developed by four Houston entrepreneurs and launched today, is claiming to be the “world’s first people-powered, points driven, search engine.” Imagine getting a digital camera or an iPod just for searching.

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Gamer kidnapped, ordered at gunpoint to release his password

This is just incredible. Just goes to show how seriously some people take this gaming business. I’m going to be careful from now when I brag about how good a gamer I am.

From the article
John sez, "An armed gang of four kidnapped one of the world's top RPG gamers after one criminal's girlfriend lured him into a fake date using Orkut, Google's social network. After sequestering him in Sao Paulo, they held a gun against the victim's head for five hours to get his password, which they wanted to sell for $8,000. And yes, the story gets even better."

According to the police, the captive is the world leader in GunBound, a turn-based RPG-style multiplayer online game. Developed in South Korea, in this artillery game you get more experience points, offensive and defensive capabilities depending on your skills during battle, as well as money to buy more weapons, armor and all kinds of gear for your multiple avatars.
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Custom YouTube Players: Here Comes YouTube TV

Google have done some nice things with YouTube since the purchased it. I like the way you can now customise the player. YouTube continually gets better and better.

From the article
You can now create customized YouTube players, choose a color theme, a video playlist and share your favorite videos. My green player shows three collections of incredible places from Google Earth, but you can use it as your own TV channel: it's easy to control the look and the content. When you add new videos to the playlist, your custom player will automatically include them.
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New Trojans: give us $300, or the data gets it!

This is kind of funny although it is serious. Stick em up! Give us all your money! Seriously though has anyone paid the $300. You would be pretty stupid if you did.

From the article
There's a new breed of ransomware in town, and it raises the stakes compared to previous viruses of this sort. Both Sinowal.FY and Gpcode.ai have been identified by security companies PandaLabs and Kaspersky Lab as malicious strains of older Trojans that encrypt users' files so that they can no longer be accessed. The Trojan then plants a readme.txt where users will find it, and inside, demands $300 in order to decrypt the files.
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Second Gen iPhone in September?

I think this is more a rumour that won’t eventuate. Well I would be surprised if it did. Sure way to piss the customers who rushed out and bought a 1st gen iPhone is to release the 2nd generation one just 3 months later. Can’t see it happening.

From the article
Remember all those version 2 iPhone rumors rumbling about back in May. Well, they're back and running amuck in Taiwan. According to DigiTimes, Taiwan's Chinese-language Commercial Times says that Taiwan's Wintek has gained the touch-screen panel orders for the second-gen iPhone. The report claims that Wintek has already begun test production in small volumes with Apple intent on selling their newest model of the iPhone in September
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Apple: iPhones misreporting battery state

If this is the only thing that goes wrong with the iPhone then I’m happy. As Apple say, they will be fixing the problem with a software update. In the meantime it’s a bit annoying but the iPhone still rocks!

From the article
A problem with the iPhone's battery not fully charging is actually an interface issue, according to Apple. Some users have been reporting that their displays indicate less than a full charge, even after phones have been left charging for ample time; but an Apple PR representative explains that the user interface is "not correctly reflecting" the real state of batteries.
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Dailymotion Loses Court Battle: Pays Damages to Indie Film Producers

Not a huge amount of money but is a win for content produces. I wonder what YouTube are making of this decision. Personally I find the decision appalling. Surely having the extra exposure is a good thing. It’s not like they were showing the whole movie.

From the article
Video-sharing site Dailymotion has just gotten a healthy slap on the wrists with a court order to pay damages to a French director for carrying a copyrighted clip of his film.

A Paris court has deemed Dailymotion’s involvement unlawful, as a clip from French indie film “Joyeux Noel” was found on the site. Dailymotion was order to pay the director, Christian Carion, EUR 1 (for symbolic purposes), while producers, Nord-Ouest received $17,914 and distributors UGC got $13,780 in damages. The site was also ordered to publish the full ruling on its website for eight days, and to also remove the clip, effective immediately.
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Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems

I can’t believe what I am reading. So now Microsoft want to snoop around our computers so they can bombard us with targeted advertising. No wonder a lot of people hate Microsoft. This is a seriously bad idea and most defiantly not a PR winner.

From the article
It's such a tremendously bad idea that it's almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an "advertising framework" that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time. Yes, Redmond wants to own the patent on the mother of all adware.

The application, filed in 2006, describes a multi-faceted, robust ad-delivering system that lives on a "user computer, whether it's part of the OS, an application or integrated within applications."
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Creating Web apps at iPhone Developer Camp

How cool is this! Wish I could attend. Looking forward to seeing some great iPhone apps as a result of this camp.

From the article
iPhone Developer Camp kicked off here Friday night with about 300 developers, testers, designers and people with or without an iPhone working on new Web applications.

Are you missing some Web apps on your new iPhone? You might find what you're looking for here. Adobes Systems' open office space has turned into hubs of tech geeks frenetically tapping on their keyboards to create new and improved Web applications and games for the iPhone. And there are some serious code writing, documenting and hacking going here at the iPhoneDevCamp, and it's all voluntary work.

Early Saturday afternoon, people were still focusing on individual projects. But in the afternoon they started teaming up and sharing. There are also sessions going for example on OpenIDand the "fear of JavaScript."

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Vista SP1 Coming In One Week

The first of many service packs I suspect. When will the service pack for the service pack come out? Seriously though it hasn’t taken that long for this first SP to be released. I’m still to upgrade to Vista so by the time I do get around to it, I will be the getting at least the SP1 version. Not sure if that is a good thing!

From the article
If you’ve been putting off the upgrade to Vista in anticipation of SP1 coming out then you won’t have to wait much longer. Beta 1 of Vista SP1 is said to be coming some time during the week of July 16. If all this is true then we can expect the final version of SP1 to be released in November, which puts it in line with the RTM of Windows Server 2008, if you’re feeling lucky.

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AutoFilter for Google Spreadsheets

You gotta love those interns don’t you. This is a great feature. Google spreadsheets just keeps getting better and better.

From the article
Spreadsheet applications have a feature that lets you filter the data from a sheet. AutoFilter displays only the rows that meet a criteria that you specify and hides the rest of the rows.

Google Spreadsheets doesn't have AutoFilter yet, but a Google intern built one using the API. You can view your own spreadsheets, but you must make them public before.
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Help Build the ultimate iPhone feature request list

There is some really great requests on this list. Make sure you add yours. I wonder if Steve Jobs is taking note of what people are asking for.

From the article
We’ve had the pleasure of using the iPhone for a couple days now, and while we certainly view it as a technological marvel, there is always room for improvement.

Since Apple itself has said there will be future software updates to add new functionality to the iPhone, we thought we would compile a list of things we’d personally like to see in the iPhone, and we’d like your help.
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Yahoo Launches Personalized SmartAds System

Are you like me and getting a little sick of being bombarded with advertising. All this trumpeting of more personalised and smartads is making me sick to the stomach. Leave me alone!

From the article
In the wake of a major executive shakeup that has included the recent resignation of CEO Terry Semel, Yahoo Monday introduced new online advertising technology to help it regain ground against Google.
Yahoo SmartAds is a dynamic ad assembly platform that lets advertisers deliver display ads that have been personalized in real-time using demographic and behavioral data. Display ads, long an area of strength for Yahoo, emphasize brands and logos; keyword search ads rely on text to get users to click on them.

"Yahoo's SmartAds gives marketers what they want from online advertising: the ability to deliver customized marketing messages to consumers, and still engage very large audiences with their brand," said Todd Teresi, Yahoo's senior vice president of display marketplaces, in a statement. "By enabling marketers to reach consumers on a more tailored basis and helping creative agencies support those customized campaigns, we can provide an even more engaging, relevant online experience to the more than 500 million users of Yahoo branded products and services."

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Firebug for iPhone

Even the mighty iPhone doesn’t come bug free. If this is one of the few things that goes wrong with it then I’m sure everyone will be happy. Do I sense a service pack coming?

From the article
Trying to debug web pages on my iPhone transported me back to a dark place I hadn't been in some time: The Land of alert() Debugging! Within the first few hours I had sent my phone into its first infinite modal loop, from which the only escape was to power down the phone and reboot it. While waiting for the reboot I pined for Firebug and my best friends console.log() and the command line. My first thought was to try and embed Firebug Lite on the phone, but the thought of trying to share that tiny screen with my app and the console was not pleasant, nor was the thought of typing JavaScript on the iPhone keyboard. I realized there is only one viable solution, which is to create a network proxy to the phone that allowed me to debug from the comfort of my computer with its big screen and real keyboard.

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Web 2.0 is Broken and Here’s Why

Sure Web 2.0 isn’t perfect as this article rightly points out. Is it broken though? I don’t think so. It’s alive and well as far as I’m concerned.

From the article
People who study the Internet for a living have expended a good deal of effort arguing about its impact on the democratic process. Ever since Web 1.0 came along and changed the world, a popular line of argument has gone roughly like this: “cyberspace allows people who possess relatively little power in the so-called real world to have their political voices heard in a more egalitarian manner on the Internet.” While the social promises made by a lot of Web 1.0 designers, promoters, and users never fully materialized, I submit to you here that there was actually a lot more democracy to be found in the first web then there is now.
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iPhone Wishlist

Some excellent wishes on this list. Some of them I am surprised where not part of the iPhone on release. Just wait until version 2 comes out. If version 1 already impresses most people, version 2 will blow their socks off.

From the article
First of all, I love my iPhone. I don’t think there are that many people who have one and don’t like it. I think there are some things that can be improved upon (of course). To keep ahead of the competition, I think Apple should step up, create new apps, and fix existing issues.

There are a few things that are given, you would think almost necessary. These are: Video Camera, MMS, and iChat. Video Camera shouldn’t be too difficult to do, it could be a simple addition to the existing “capture” pill button when in the Camera app. MMS shouldn’t be too difficult to add, I don’t honestly know why it wasn’t included in the first place. As for iChat, this would almost prevent me from using text messages (which is good, save money) and I’d have a broader range of people to talk to. AIM is included on phones now, why this isn’t included now is beyond me.

I feel like I need to bring up GPS. It’d be nice, but not possible in iPhone’s current incarnation.
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