Posts from January 2006

The latest episode of Om and Niall PodSessions is now available. This week Om and I talk about VoIP and the new applications with seamless integration of new voice technologies. A recent study by In-Stat found 73% of all VoIP subscribers have migrated to VoIP without making a conscious decision to adopt the new technology. On Sunday my dad asked me about Vonage, and the various boxes he saw advertised with the services in the Sunday newspaper inserts. To him, Vonage was just another long distance provider and happened to have cheap rates to call Ireland. He had no clue...

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Want to create your own Google Toolbar custom button? If you use Movable Type just copy and paste this template code into a new template ending with "xml". Users can view your Atom feed from the toolbar, search your blog from the Google search box, or select text on the web page and click your blog button to find out what you have written about that topic. Your icon will be the Movable Type wrench unless you change it. Once you have generated the file, just add a special link to your blog to let your readers add your button...

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Google Toolbar version 4 allows developers to create custom buttons using a custom XML descriptor and extended functionality using RDF, RSS, and Atom feeds. The Google toolbar button API can be used to display the latest entry titles from a feed, execute a keyword or URL search, or continuously communicate data at a glance. I created custom buttons for this blog and Technorati. The Google Toolbar can now serve as a feed reader for any feed with a custom Google Toolbar icon. You can even specify in your button file a different icon you would like to display when new...

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Google just introduced version 4 of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer including support for centralized bookmark tagging and notation from multiple computers. The new feature allows any toolbar user with a Google account to store bookmarks within their Google search history for synchronization and editing. Google bookmarks can also be added and edited via a web interface. You can add a new Google bookmark anywhere on the web when logged in by passing Google a few URL-encoded values. http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark title the title of the bookmark bkmk the bookmark URL labels comma separated labels or tags annotation A note or...

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Chris Andersen: "The owner of Dog.com just paid $1 million for Fish.com, in hopes of starting what amounts to a new Pets.com." Online shopping for your pets is big business again but this time the company is focused on selling smaller items such as dog treats instead of 50 pound bags of dog food. Is the fish food market worth a $1 million domain name? Graphic by Wired News Tags: dogspetsfish...

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Microsoft just announced major upgrades to MSN Spaces. Highlights Search MSN Spaces blogs using MSN Search. The search index is still being populated and found no results for "kitten." MSN Spaces member search Mobile versions of all MSN Spaces blogs, including search. Xbox gamer card integration. MSN Spaces is now available in Latin America, South Africa, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Members can now upload up to 500 photos each month. The new photo uploading feature supports photo descriptions and comments. It's now easier to make money with Kanoodle contextual ads or Amazon's associates program. Over 100 themes to choose...

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Disney just announced the acquisition of Pixar for about $7.4 billion. 2.3 Disney shares will be exchanged for every Pixar share, including the shares of Pixar's largest shareholder, Steve Jobs, who owns 50.6% of all outstanding shares. Jobs joins the Disney board of directors as part of the deal which is expected to close this summer. Tags: disneypixarstevejobs...

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UPN and The WB will launch a new network named CW this fall and shut down their existing channels. No word on how the change affects airing of Simpsons reruns. Tags: cwthesimpsonsthewbupn...

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Yahoo! Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker recently told Bloomberg News Yahoo! does not intend to gain market share in the search space. "It's not our goal to be #1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share." (via Steve Rubel) Decker says Yahoo! will instead improve advertising on its search results pages to bring in more revenue. The comment may have been made on Decker's appearance on Bloomberg Morning Call last week, but I have not been able to find the video. Yahoo!'s stock price is up about 2% this morning after a 20% slide...

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This post is part 3 of a series about the early days of shopping comparison site PriceGrabber.com. You may want to read part 1 and part 2 before continuing. We've all seen the overconfident hitter come to the plate, take three home run swings, and look back at the catchers mitt every time he fails to connect. Given a small team with limited resources I prefer the BIlly Beane approach of playing small ball to bring in the wins. Landing small business development deals in succession can establish a small player and bring in the revenue needed to swing for...

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