Category: Websites (Page 17 of 23)

      Facebook 3.0 Has Been Submitted

      August 16, 2009 /

      Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone.According to Joe Hewitt’s Twitter feed, Facebook 3.0 has officially been submitted to the app store. If you need the details on Facebook’s latest face lift, check out this post from earlier in the month.

      The Facebook devs are definitely excited about this one. They’ve got a new page up where they plan to release more details and screenshots as our waiting begins. I don’t think we’ll be waiting for long, though. Apple already has enough app problems on their hands without adding Facebook to the list.

      The feature I’m most looking forward to is video. I don’t really use my Facebook account for much more than keeping my family up to date on my comings and goings. Adding video to the mix is most certainly welcome.

      Apps, iPhone, Websites

      Browsers Beware: Chrome Is Coming For You

      August 16, 2009 /

      Chromium logo.I’ve been looking for a new browser recently, mostly because nothing’s really cutting it. I like the gesture support for my Macbook in Firefox 3.5, but it’s a crazy buggy release, the worst I’ve had from Mozilla, and its been driving me crazy. The spinning-lollipop-of-death when I’m browsing through Google Reader is enough to make me wish I had more hair so I could pull it out. Safari’s nice, but it’s missing my gestures and feels sluggish at times. I’m not an Opera guy, so just don’t ask. There is an up and comer that I’ve got my eye on, though, and I’m anxiously awaiting a stable build.

      I’m talking about Chrome for OS X, which is known in development right now as Chromium. I’ve been playing around with a few of the most recent builds and I have to say, the browser just keeps getting better. They still haven’t implemented most of the gestures I love (seriously, rotating two fingers to flip through tabs is wonderful), but it seems like new features are making the pre-alpha build almost every day, which can only mean good things for the future.

      As a recent article on CNet points out, Chromium is also kicking some Apple ass in the speed department. Chromium comes in a solid 34% faster than Safari, which used to be king on almost any OS X machine.

      It’s strange, I never really used to place much importance on my browser, but its become almost as important as the operating system. I spend so much of my time within a browser’s confines that it makes me curious just what Chrome OS is going to do for mobile computing. I love the sleek simplicity of Chrome (I also own a PC) which is only enhanced by the pure speed of the whole thing. Once it gets going on my Mac, I just might be in love.

      For those of you looking to make a change, the guys at TechCrunch have put together a little program with an Automator script that will automatically check to see that you have the latest version of Chromium installed.

      Computers, News, Websites

      Facebook Is Losing Its Cool

      August 10, 2009 /

      Do you Facebook anymore?About six months ago I started having a fairly extended discussion with my girlfriend over the merits and setbacks of older adults getting onto Facebook. The prospect never thrilled her, and that attitude seems to be the norm.

      An older generation’s slow adoption of Facebook never thrilled me either, but for entirely different reasons. I simply can’t stand the way they talk about it. Yes, I’m generalizing in a big way here, but the type thirty-somethings that will sit in bars and restaurants talking about how cool it is to reconnect with a high school girlfriend after a messy divorce invite just this sort of criticism. Truthfully, Facebook never thrilled me. I was already in touch with the people I really wanted to be in touch with. I’m not the type of person who likes to have intermittent contact with hundreds of people. What I’ve found Facebook most useful for is answering the questions you don’t want to answer at family reunions. Add my aunts and uncles and they know what I’m doing, where I’m living, and can see what few pictures I post. Family reunions have never been less painful.

      My generation, certainly including some of those who used to love Facebook, are shying away from the social site as their parents warm up to it. In fact, just 50% of the 15-24 crowd is checking Facebook regularly, compared to 55% last year. By contrast, 46% of 25- to 34-year-olds are now regulars, up from 40% last year. It’s worth pointing out that these age groups are still using the internet, but the 15-24s have moved their usage time away from Facebook and on to other, more interesting things.

      The sub-16 age group is still going strong, likely looking for a place to branch out and experiment with structuring their identity through the online social site. You can expect those numbers to drop as kids get older and realize their parents are using the same site like one big holiday greeting card.

      My question to you, dear readers, is how do you spend your Facebook time? Has it evolved over time? Do you use it as often as when you started? Have you quit the site altogether? Sound off in the comments.

      Source: The Guardian

      News, Websites

      Google Sees YouTube as Profitable in the Near Future

      July 17, 2009 /

      YouTube making some money.In 2006 we all sat around kicking ourselves, wondering why we didn’t think up a little site called YouTube. That was when Google bought the video-sharing site for a whopping $1.65 billion. Since then, though, the search giant has been unable to get the site to turn a profit.

      That’s all about to change, at least Google thinks so. In an earnings conference call this past Thursday, CEO Eric Schmidt said YouTube is heading in the right direction, making it very easy for advertisers to get profitable ads up on the site. Recent months have brought a few changes to ad possibilities, which now include pre-roll ads like you’ve seen on Hulu and other video sharing sites.

      Google’s head of product management and marketing, Jonathan Rosenberg, echoed Schmidt’s enthusiasm. He said monetized views, meaning videos with ad support, had tripled in the last year. According to Rosenberg, YouTube is now “monetizing billions of views of partner videos every month.”

      Even the company’s CFO, Patrick Pichette chimed in, saying, “We’re really pleased both in terms of (YouTube’s) revenue growth, which is really material to YouTube, and… in the not long, too-long-distant future, we actually see a very profitable and good business for us.”

      Just another step closer to world domination…

      Video, Websites

      Google ChromeOS – Should everyone be scared?

      July 16, 2009 /

      So I ran across this cartoon about how Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X should be scared of Google ChromeOS and it made me wonder. How true may this cartoon be?

      Could Google’s ChromeOS dominate cloud computing? Could ChromeOS become the operating system for all our gadgets including cell phones, desktops, laptops, tablets, netbooks, etc.? Could Google store all our apps on centralized servers thereby eliminating the need to sync up all your devices all the time? And considering all of this, could Google and ChromeOS remain free?

      Scary as it may sound, I think the short answer is yes.

      Even though I’m a self proclaimed techno-geek/gadget guy, I find it hard to predict where all of “this” is going. Considering it feels like just a few years ago when I was rocking out to my brand spanking new Guns-N-Roses Appetite for Destruction tape during breaks from nonstop marathons on NES Super Mario Brothers, I really have a hard time predicting the future. My first PC game was text-based and was played on a monochrome monitor. My college PC had a 270 Megabyte hard drive that I regularly compressed. Did I have a clue that just a few years later that my phone would fit in my pocket and could play my entire library of music as well as stream online video content and surf the web? Uh, no. So what’s my point? I try to think about the future of gadgets and no matter how hard I try, I cannot predict where all of this is going.

      That’s why this cartoon is so intriguing. Though intended to be humorous, it may have a point. In this new world of technology, don’t you think it’s silly that we are still paying for operating systems? Of course some of us don’t (you know who you are Linux users) but the majority of us still pay a premium to run our computers. It also seems silly that we have to sync up all our gadgets with cables and cords. I imagine in just a few short years we’ll laugh at how many cables we used to have to carry around and keep track of. I also think it’s silly that we don’t have all of our applications available to us no matter what device we use. Programs like Xmarks and MobileMe are just the start of things. I mean come on, it’s 2009, shouldn’t I have all my internet bookmarks available to me no matter what computer or device I’m using (thank you Xmarks for taking care of that). But bookmarks are just the start of it, next will be applications. Then what comes after that?

      If you’re like me, this sounds great, but a bit scary as well. The final part of the cartoon about “a corporation that people still trust” is part of the reason I’m scared. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Google. But for some reason, I feel like I should be wary. I don’t know why, I just do. Does anyone else feel that way? That’s probably the reason I’ve never installed Google Desktop. It just feels weird that an internet-based company will be handling the indexing of all my personal files. Now that same company wants to provide the operating system for all my devices and house all my applications? A bit scary for sure.

      So what do you think? Is there truth to the comic? Where is all “this” going? Should we be scared? Or should we just read the comic and laugh like it’s 1999?

      Apple, Apps, Computers, Digital Media, iPhone, microsoft, Mobile, Websites

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