Six Months In, And 600 Posts Later . . . The Worlds Of Blogging and Journalism Collide (In My Brain)
March 30, 2008
Blink, and six months go by. Ever since I made the move from Time Inc. to TechCrunch, my life has become a whirlwind of nonstop blog posting, little sleep, and a growing addiction to news feeds, Techmeme, and my Blackberry. Last week, I wrote my 600th post (this one is No. 617). The boxes I brought over from my previous career are still stacked, unopened, in my TechCrunch office. A lone painting from my three-year-old son adorns the wall. I have not had time to unpack or even buy a bookshelf to put things on. Fourteen years worth of stuff, and it still amazes me I don’t need any of it.
The Semantic Hacker One-Million Dollar Challenge
March 19, 2008
Semantic startups and projects are hot right now. (See Radar Networks, Freebase, Blue Organizer, Hakia, even Yahoo). But what do you do if you are a little-known technology company in Rochester, New York with a powerful semantic-analysis engine on your hands that you want to turn into new businesses?
WordPress: The Social Network
March 4, 2008
Can WordPress become the basis of a social network? Automattic founder and WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg hinted today on his blog that WordPress might go in a more social direction. He announced a new hire, Andy Peatling, the developer behind BuddyPress, a social network built on top of WordPress. BuddyPress will now become an official WordPress project.
Peatling describes an earlier version of BuddyPress, ChickSpeak (a social network for college women). He built ChickSpeak (and BuddyPress) on top of a multi-user version of WordPress. He moved all the blog posts off to the side and made most of the real estate a profile page with messaging functionality. Finally, he took advantage of all the open-source plugins available for WordPress:
Read moreBlogging Is Good For Your Social Life: Study
March 3, 2008
A new study has found Bloggers are better adjusted and live healthier, happier social lives.
The research, from Swinburne University of Technology found that “people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who did not blog” after a two month blogging period when compared to people who do not blog.
The good news also extends to users of social networking sites, with the study finding than any online interaction makes users “feel less anxious, depressed and stressed.”
Read moreWhat Exactly Did The JuicyCampus Founder Think Would Happen?
March 2, 2008
I’m not sure what JuicyCampus founder Matt Ivester expected when he launched a gossip site for college students, but apparently things are getting out of hand. People, who can post anonymously, are being “mean.” And despite some legal protections, Ivester might be getting a little nervous about defamation and libel lawsuits.
In a blog post on Friday, he says “Some of the things that have been posted have been mean-spirited, and we have received emails from people claiming to have been defamed on the site,” and adds “We want you to make JuicyCampus Juicy, not hateful.” Read more
New York Times Launching Its Mobile-To-PC Content Sharing Service
February 25, 2008
The New York Times Co (NYSE: NYT). is launching a service today called ShifD that sends your content to the cloud to make it easily accessible from your computer, phone or other devices. The service works like this: let's say you see a headline for a news story that sounds interesting, you can clip it and read it later on any device. If you are at a restaurant, you can send yourself a message with the name of the wine you enjoyed, so you can buy it later. Or, when you are at the grocery store, you can pull up the recipe you wanted to make for dinner to ensure you have all the right ingredients. Full story with interview, and screen shots of the service are here on mocoNews.net.
Google Launching Beta Of Adsense For Video; To Use YouTube-Like Overlays
February 21, 2008
Following a pilot program that began last May, Google has announced the beta launch of its Adsense for video offering. The company will use the same InVideo, overlay ads that it uses to run ads on YouTube. At types include video-based blocks sold on a CPM basis, and CPC text overlays. For now, the new offering will be available to video publishers that do a minimum of 1 million streams per month. The sites must be in English and based in the US. Going forward, the company plans to expand the program geographically and to publishers of different sizes. More details in the announcement. Read more
Nielsen Buys iTV And VOD Analytics Firm Audience Analytics
February 18, 2008
Nielsen, after its rebranding efforts and under new ownership, has been on an acquisitions tear on its mainstay analytics side: it bought mobile analytics firm Telephia and blog buzz firm BuzzMetrics, last year, bought a stake in NeuroFocus earlier this year, and now has bought out Utah-based TV analysis company Audience Analytics and its Audience Watch software, reports THR. The technology acquired will become the primary delivery mechanism for Nielsen's DigitalPlus product, which will provide metrics on interactive television data and VOD transactions, the company said. In addition, with this purchase, the company will develop a single platform to process TV, Internet, mobile and consumer data sets.
