Blog – Page 23 – Niall Kennedy

MySpace upgrades to Flash 9

Mega social networking site MySpace now requires all members to upgrade their Flash players to version 9 in order to view new embedded content on the site. Flash Player 9 is only three weeks old, released by Adobe on June 28. The required upgrade adds new security restrictions for any new content embedded on the site utilizing the latest supported object properties.

When you add a new embedded object to your page MySpace automatically sets the allowNetworking property of the object to internal restricting external interfaces and links contained within outside Flash files. The new setting disables common calls such as clicking on a Flash widget to view the original site or data provider. It also restricts the use of JavaScript from outside providers.

How will the MySpace requirement drive adoption of the three-week-old Flash player? The new version has lots of new features including better multimedia support, so it would be a good thing if users had it right away and all the new video companies could plan even better features using the same bandwidth. Meanwhile MySpace widget producers will need to write their software using ActionScript 3.0 to make sure they can monetize their content within both the embed and the destination page.

Ask adds RSS smart answers

Search engine Ask.com now displays the last three feed items at the top of the search result page for strong title matches. A search for “BoingBoing” displays the popular blog’s last three posts complete with a link to the individual item, a 98-character summary, and the publication date.

There are a few bits of polish missing from the implementation. I’d like to be able to directly access the source feed and subscribe right away. It would also be cool if every feed title from my subscription list was part of my own personal smart answers, increasing the personal relevancy of the Ask suite.

BloxPress personalized blog sidebars

BloxPress is a theme and template engine for WordPress that allows viewers of your blog to configure their own widget modules in your sidebars. If Bill likes to view the last 10 comments and Jane likes to see your latest Flickr uploads, they can have both at once with their own configuration.

Individual user preferences are stored in a cookie and anyone can create their own “blocks” for the system. Check out the demo to see the system in action.

It’s too bad the blocks do not seem to interoperate with any other widget definition format. I’m glad Spaces will be adding Microsoft Gadgets to its sidebar, increasing the usefulness of the format whether it’s on a personal start page, desktop sidebar, or blog sidebar.

Panama is a bad code name

Yahoo’s stock declined 22% today after the company missed analysts’ quarterly estimates and announced its new advertising system, codenamed Panama, was delayed. I think of many failures when I hear the term “Panama” but the first thing that popped to mind in Yahoo’s case is Scotland and its Darien scheme.

Towards the end of the 17th century Scotland realized it was falling behind the rest of Europe and undertook a few initiatives to modernize the country and better compete with the new economies of Europe. The Company of Scotland was created to establish new trade routes with Africa and the Indies, the popular trading spots of the day. Scotland invested about a third of its wealth in establishing a new trading colony in Panama, opening new possibilities for the country.

The effort failed within a year partially because two huge empires in the region, England and Spain, were not too happy about Scotland’s presence. Scotland was essentially bankrupt from the operation and had little choice but to accept England’s treasure chest and become part of the British Empire.

There is also the history of warring generals, dictators, and general disease that kept people away from the small strip of trading space for so many decades.

Building a new ad platform is not an easy thing, but perhaps the yodelers could have picked a better codename.

Windows Live Feed Platform has a blog

I’ve been working on an online feed syndication platform at Microsoft since late-April, and now the project finally has a blog. I decided to start the conversation by discussing some of the key concepts and ideas behind the project, and some of its planned features. The first post focuses on synchronization, sharing, and portability.

Is it possible to develop a product or platform in the open? Partially. I won’t disclose what’s shipping when, or what product will be first up for integration, but I can be open about our approach to some common problems and expose some integration points for partners to consider.

The basic key concept is to provide a variety of choices for each option, but make Microsoft’s implementation so compelling you wouldn’t want to switch.

I don’t plan to cross-post often, so if you’re interested in the feeds platform you should subscribe to the new blog.

FeedBurner acquires Blogbeat

Feed statistics and advertising company FeedBurner has acquired web page tracker Blogbeat for an undisclosed sum. Blogbeat is located in Raleigh-Durham, giving FeedBurner a presence on the east (web stats), center (hq), and west (bizdev) in the U.S..

Blogbeat tracks visitors to a web page using a JavaScript placed on each site page. FeedBurner is able to provide similar tracking through its FeedFlare service but had not yet built a front-end allowing publishers to view the data. The acquisition of Blogbeat will allow FeedBurner to offer publishers a more complete view of their site, posts, and subscriptions by tracking web page views, feed aggregator activity, and e-mail subscriptions, and monetization through one central interface if you let FeedBurner manage each feature.

Google has a good opportunity to strongly compete in the same space. If the company introduces feed subscription tracking and advertising it could have Measure Map, Google Analytics, Sitemaps, and AdSense accessible through one blog tracker. FeedBurner has a good headstart and a lot of expertise in their market to keep moving fast and staying ahead of the giants.

Paying Blogbeat members are getting their money back. FeedBurner plans to have initial integration of the new product by the end of the year.

The Widgetization of the Web

Widgets are taking over the web, small pieces at a time. Big web destinations are opening their templates to custom configurations by users and pre-configurations with special partners. Mix and match your favorite content from around the web on your personal start page from Microsoft, Google, or Netvibes. Share a few live and always updating bits of information in your blog sidebar using widgets on WordPress or TypePad.

Small(er) businesses can leverage the huge distributions of users across most of the top web properties. Over half of the top Internet companies for home users currently open up their pages for easy setup of your content.

Parent Co.	Unique Audience (000)	Reach %	Time Per Person
Microsoft	59,378	51.45	00:32:54
Yahoo!	56,000	48.52	00:49:28
Time Warner	53,196	46.09	01:20:08
Google	45,544	39.46	00:10:44
News Corp. Online	24,590	21.31	00:43:56
eBay	21,394	18.54	00:36:59
InterActiveCorp	17,822	15.44	00:10:36
RealNetworks, Inc.	12,740	11.04	00:27:28
Amazon	12,352	10.70	00:09:29
Apple Computer	12,003	10.40	00:31:13

Data from Nielsen//NetRaings, week of July 5.

Each of the companies highlighted in yellow has an potential audience waiting for content and information from your webapp. What fresh content and information would you like to present to your users and their readers anywhere at any time?

Widgets are simply composed of HTML with optional CSS for styling and JavaScript for rich interaction. A few sites require an XML to tie all your files together as well.

Image by PostApp

Widgets can include the latest inbound links to your blog as tracked by Technorati, your current availability on an IM network, or the top stories on Digg. Some widgets can be extended to your desktop using software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, and others.

New ecosystems are springing up around widget-enabled sites. Companies such YouTube and Slide receive the majority of their traffic from embedded content on MySpace. Google has created an IDE for their gadgets. Startup company PostApp is creating an entire business around widget syndication. It’s only just the beginning of widget services across the web.

Om Malik and I discuss in more detail the current state of the widget web in this week’s PodSession named Widgetization of the Web. The podcast is 23 minutes in length, a 10 MB download.

Web 2.0 tag cloud laser etching

Mac geek Dan Lurie took his PowerBook to Squid Labs yesterday for a custom laser-etched cover. Dan designed a tag cloud full of Web 2.0 buzzwords for the world to see.

He’ll definitely have fun at the next Web geek gathering. I have a feeling most of the buzzwords will end up a historical blip like so many of the companies in the Monopoly .com edition I have at home.

If you’re coming to San Francisco for WWDC start designing your etched covers now! There are a few laser etching shops in the Bay area.

Technorati raises $10.52 million series C

Update 8/15: PE Wire places the total amount raised at $10.52 million, not $7.6 million as previously reported.

Technorati received a $10.52 million investment in June from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mobius Venture Capital. The investment was revealed in a SEC filing on June 22 and made public on Monday. VentureWire reported the investment in its popular newsletter this week.

Andreas Stavropoulous of DFJ and Ryan McIntyre of Mobius were previous investors in Technorati and have occupied board seats for close to two years.

Technorati took an angel round of investment in the summer of 2003 from a few individuals including Esther Dyson and Joi Ito and used the money to turn a side-project into a full-time business. In August 2004 Technorati took additional funding and board members, investing in servers and a new colocation center while bringing on additional staff members, growing the company from 5 people and what I call “the back of the liquor store colo” to over 30 people with servers hosted in a former tank factory.

The latest round will most likely be used to continue Technorati’s growth in hardware and personnel as the blogosphere expands and Technorati attempts to index it all and discover new content sources overseas.

If you are interested in details of Technorati’s past funding processes check out the 106 Miles talk by founder and CEO Dave Sifry from February 2005. Dave specifically mentions the VC process about 34 minutes into the talk. You won’t hear much from Technorati about the round since Dave likens funding announcements to proclaiming your latest levels of debt.

Taobao bridges online and offline retailing

Chinese online marketplace Taobao is lending its name to a new 12,000 square-foot shopping mall in Shanghai. Taobao, an eBay competitor with about twice the Chinese market share, will receive about $1.25 million a year for use of its name on the Taobao Cheng shopping center. About 300 retailers will be able to setup shops with broadband Internet access and discounted rent (about $22 a month) connected to their online storefront. Merchants can staff their brick and mortar store and fulfill orders placed online at the same time.

Taobao is owned by Alibaba, which in turn is partially owned by Yahoo!.