The New York Times reports Google plans to introduce a new version of Google Desktop on Monday and a “communications tool” on Wednesday. The new Google Desktop will feature live content panels allowing developers to write their own widgets associated with Google Desktop. A beta version of Google Desktop version 2 is now available on the Google Desktop site. What communications tool will Google introduce on Wednesday? Google mobile? Google IM? We have a few days to speculate. Tags: googledesktop…
Category Archives: Software
Blogs as an e-mail replacement
While at a cafe on Friday afternoon I experienced a new use for TypePad. I was at Ritual Coffee Roasters in the Mission district of San Francisco Friday afternoon when I noticed a gentleman transferring notes from a notepad to entries on his TypePad blog. His girlfriend is currently in Africa as a humanitarian aid worker and he created a password-protected TypePad blog to keep in touch. Blogging had replaced e-mail as their most reliable form of communication. How do you communicate with someone when you are unsure when they will have access to the Internet in one form or…
Movable Type 3.2 includes free license for unlimited weblogs
Mena Trott just announced a new license structure for Movable Type 3.2: “all users will be entitled to unlimited weblogs. This goes for free users, as well.” Six Apart’s current pricing structure allows an unpaid user of Movable Type up to 3 weblogs with unlimited weblog licenses available for a Personal Basic license fee of $70. The change makes sense as it allows Six Apart to track all of its licenses based on the number of authors. Tags: movabletype…
Odeo receives venture capital funding
Odeo just announced a funding round led by Charles River Ventures and joined by Amicus Ventures and 14 individual investors. Individual investors Emanuele Angelidis Francesco Caio Ron Conway James Hong Don Hutchinson Mitch Kapor Josh Kopelman Joe Kraus Mike Maples Tim O’Reilly Dave Pell Ariel Poler Barbara Poggiali Ed Zschau No word yet on the total amount investor or who sits on the board. Tags: odeo, podcasting…
PodShow receives $8.85 million series A round
PodShow has received $8.85 million dollars in venture capital from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers according to today’s Private Equity Week Wire. The board is currently comprised of John Doerr and Ray Lane from KPCB, Jerry Newman of Bear Stearns, and angel investor Ram Shriram. PodShow was created by Ron Bloom and Adam Curry last year. The PodShow strategy podcast from April provides more information on the company and how they plan to expand. (financing tip via Jeff Clavier) This investment is a big deal for podcasting and user-generated distributed media. I have not really been following…
Firefox feed styling
I downloaded the nightly build of Firefox this morning and noticed a new default styling for feeds. Firefox is currently displaying headlines only but it looks like you may be able to adjust that preference through the hovering preference and information box on the right-hand side. A checkbox appears next to items with a link currently in your browser history. Deer Park is the name of Firefox binaries while in alpha development stage. Tags: firefox, deerpark…
RSS is still an obscure term
Pew Internet & American Life Project asked over 1300 Internet users about their awareness of certain Internet terms. While 88% of respondents had a good idea what the term “spam” means only 9% had a good idea what “RSS” means. 26% of respondents had never heard the term “RSS.” I am sure MP3 was just as obscure before the term became synonymous with all digital music….
Microsoft RSS search using Start.com
Microsoft announced a new version of Start.com yesterday that includes news and feed search. You can view the new Start.com and search for yourself. Search results are displayed in a JavaScript window and each search category’s results are displayed using asynchronous JavaScript. You can subscribe to the feed of any result in the RSS search results. I still don’t like the branding of feed search as “RSS search” but I do still ask for a Kleenex even if it’s a Puffs and my parents call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover even if it’s a Dyson. Tags: microsoft, feedsearch, rss…
Bloglines feed statistics
Ask Jeeves just released some statistics about the size of their database and subscribed users. 1,121,655 feeds with at least one subscriber Slashdot is the most popular feed with 37,400 active subscribers. Bloglines indexes almost 600 million articles (items/entries). Bloglines adds over 2 million new articles to its index daily. My blog has a RSS feed for every post, category, month, as well as custom keyword searches and a feed for the last 15 blog entries. That’s thousands of feeds without even mentioning my Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0 feeds. I am definitely not conservative in what I produce and…
News Corp buys MySpace parent company for $580 million
News Corporation announced it will acquire Intermix Media, Inc. for $12 a share, or approximately $580 million in cash. Intermix is the parent company of MySpace.com, a popular social networking and blogging service with over eighteen million members. News Corporation is an international media conglomerate and consisting of Fox, Sky, DirectTV, New York Post, and Harper Collins. Intermix Media recently settled a spyware suit with the State of New York for $7.5 million dollars. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter pending shareholder approval. MySpace.com is attracting 2 million new registered users every month according to chief…