MediaTech101
Saturday, May 29, 2010
[Google Fast Flip] Second Life Economy At Record High
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
Now you might be wondering what Second Life has to do with media technology, and not much. But Second Life could be use as a venue for performances or evens a means of production in niches like previsualization
Second Life Economy At Record High
The world economy may still be firmly in the toilet but the economy inside the virtual world of Second Life is doing fine. Better than fine, in fact. Q1 of 2010 was a record-breaker. In a post on the Second Life blog, Tom Hall, Chief Product Officer for SL owner Linden Labs, said user-to-user transactions in the immersive world spiked 30% over last year to $160 million, breaking all previous company records. Like most virtual worlds and online games, Second Life uses a "virtual currency," in this case the Linden Dollar. This is an in-game token currency that must be purchased with legitimate moneys and can be used to buy things inside the environment, or converted back into real-world lucre. In-game objects can be bought and sold (and profit can be made) and users can program new objects to sell, from shoes to cars and beyond. The company itself makes money in part by assessing a transaction fee on in-game commerce. Additional high-points for the company included included the fact total sales on Xstreet, the Second Life marketplace, reaching $2.3 million, an 82% increase year-to-year and a 24% increase over the previous quarter. Total Linden Dollars exchanged on LindeX, the in-game...
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Now you might be wondering what Second Life has to do with media technology, and not much. But Second Life could be use as a venue for performances or evens a means of production in niches like previsualization
Second Life Economy At Record High
The world economy may still be firmly in the toilet but the economy inside the virtual world of Second Life is doing fine. Better than fine, in fact. Q1 of 2010 was a record-breaker. In a post on the Second Life blog, Tom Hall, Chief Product Officer for SL owner Linden Labs, said user-to-user transactions in the immersive world spiked 30% over last year to $160 million, breaking all previous company records. Like most virtual worlds and online games, Second Life uses a "virtual currency," in this case the Linden Dollar. This is an in-game token currency that must be purchased with legitimate moneys and can be used to buy things inside the environment, or converted back into real-world lucre. In-game objects can be bought and sold (and profit can be made) and users can program new objects to sell, from shoes to cars and beyond. The company itself makes money in part by assessing a transaction fee on in-game commerce. Additional high-points for the company included included the fact total sales on Xstreet, the Second Life marketplace, reaching $2.3 million, an 82% increase year-to-year and a 24% increase over the previous quarter. Total Linden Dollars exchanged on LindeX, the in-game...
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Labels: gaming, marketplace
¶ 11:48 AM 0 comments
[Google Fast Flip] Amazon Posts Dozens of New Job Listings Implying a New Kindle Is on...
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
Another spot in the ebook wars
Amazon Posts Dozens of New Job Listings Implying a New Kindle Is on...
BY Dan Nosowitz Today Amazon has been posting dozens of job listings on its site over the past few weeks, most notably for positions that have nothing to do with the company's core retail business. "Hardware platform engineer"? "Advanced materials specialist"? "Product design manager"? These are not online retail positions: these are for the next-gen Kindle. Frustratingly, they're all very vague. Just once, I'd like Amazon to put out a job listing for, I don't know, "LCD multitouch display engineer," with job requirements including, "2+ years experience with 10-inch, Samsung-made OLED displays." That kind of thing would really make my job easier. But Amazon is damnably clever, and steadfastly refuses to do my job for me, so let's do some analysis. Lab126 is the division of Amazon responsible for the Kindle, so we can safely assume all of these listings are in some way Kindle-related. There are several signs here that Amazon is in a fairly late stage of development with a new Kindle--a "Software quality assurance engineer" and "Software development test engineer" both suggest that, as the New York Times says, "a product needs to be tested." An ad went up yesterday seeking a "Product...
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Another spot in the ebook wars
Amazon Posts Dozens of New Job Listings Implying a New Kindle Is on...
BY Dan Nosowitz Today Amazon has been posting dozens of job listings on its site over the past few weeks, most notably for positions that have nothing to do with the company's core retail business. "Hardware platform engineer"? "Advanced materials specialist"? "Product design manager"? These are not online retail positions: these are for the next-gen Kindle. Frustratingly, they're all very vague. Just once, I'd like Amazon to put out a job listing for, I don't know, "LCD multitouch display engineer," with job requirements including, "2+ years experience with 10-inch, Samsung-made OLED displays." That kind of thing would really make my job easier. But Amazon is damnably clever, and steadfastly refuses to do my job for me, so let's do some analysis. Lab126 is the division of Amazon responsible for the Kindle, so we can safely assume all of these listings are in some way Kindle-related. There are several signs here that Amazon is in a fairly late stage of development with a new Kindle--a "Software quality assurance engineer" and "Software development test engineer" both suggest that, as the New York Times says, "a product needs to be tested." An ad went up yesterday seeking a "Product...
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Labels: amazon, ebooks, hardware, kindle
¶ 5:56 AM 0 comments
Saturday, May 22, 2010
[Google Fast Flip] Can Social Networks Be Generated Automatically?
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
Organic Social Networks
Can Social Networks Be Generated Automatically?
By Erica Naone When Google launched Buzz, a microblogging social network, several months ago, the company boasted that the network had been generated automatically, by algorithms that could connect users to each other based on communications revealed through Gmail and other services. However, many users balked at having what they perceived as mischaracterized social connections, forcing the company to frantically backpedal and make the Buzz service less automated and more under users' control. This incident notwithstanding, many companies are increasingly interested in automatically determining users' social ties through e-mail and social network communications. For example, IBM's Lotus division offers a product called Atlas that constructs social data from corporate communications, and Microsoft has investigated using such data to automatically prioritize the e-mails that workers receive. But researchers say there are a lot of unsolved problems with generating and analyzing social networks based on patterns of communication. In a paper presented recently at the WWW2010 conference in Raleigh, NC, a group of researchers from Yahoo pointed out that before it's possible to construct a...
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Organic Social Networks
Can Social Networks Be Generated Automatically?
By Erica Naone When Google launched Buzz, a microblogging social network, several months ago, the company boasted that the network had been generated automatically, by algorithms that could connect users to each other based on communications revealed through Gmail and other services. However, many users balked at having what they perceived as mischaracterized social connections, forcing the company to frantically backpedal and make the Buzz service less automated and more under users' control. This incident notwithstanding, many companies are increasingly interested in automatically determining users' social ties through e-mail and social network communications. For example, IBM's Lotus division offers a product called Atlas that constructs social data from corporate communications, and Microsoft has investigated using such data to automatically prioritize the e-mails that workers receive. But researchers say there are a lot of unsolved problems with generating and analyzing social networks based on patterns of communication. In a paper presented recently at the WWW2010 conference in Raleigh, NC, a group of researchers from Yahoo pointed out that before it's possible to construct a...
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Labels: social networks
¶ 6:14 PM 0 comments
[Google Fast Flip] Google Refreshes Android Market Website – It Inexplicably Still L...
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
Android Market pluses and minuses
Google Refreshes Android Market Website – It Inexplicably Still L...
by Robin Wauters on May 17, 2010 We're not 100% sure when it popped up first, but Google has seemingly updated the Android Market website. Don't pee your pants just yet – they've apparently merely shuffled some things around along with other layout changes. Still no search, still no way to download apps OTA, still no statistics of any kind. On the bright side, the interface is more straightforward than it used to be. You can see a screenshot of the 'old' UI in this post, in which Jason Kincaid rightly calls for an Android Market desktop client – as you can tell the new website makes it a tad easier to browse different categories for both free and paid apps. Google being Google, I'm really surprised the new website still lacks search functionality. I mean, it's fine that you can look up apps from your Android phone, but what if you don't happen to have it on you? There's no way to check if there's a Skype or Facebook client for Android by browsing the Market website, unless you happen to stumble upon them in the listings of featured, top free or top paid apps. Granted, they are clear about the Android Market website serving as a showcase of apps only right at the top of the new ...
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Android Market pluses and minuses
Google Refreshes Android Market Website – It Inexplicably Still L...
by Robin Wauters on May 17, 2010 We're not 100% sure when it popped up first, but Google has seemingly updated the Android Market website. Don't pee your pants just yet – they've apparently merely shuffled some things around along with other layout changes. Still no search, still no way to download apps OTA, still no statistics of any kind. On the bright side, the interface is more straightforward than it used to be. You can see a screenshot of the 'old' UI in this post, in which Jason Kincaid rightly calls for an Android Market desktop client – as you can tell the new website makes it a tad easier to browse different categories for both free and paid apps. Google being Google, I'm really surprised the new website still lacks search functionality. I mean, it's fine that you can look up apps from your Android phone, but what if you don't happen to have it on you? There's no way to check if there's a Skype or Facebook client for Android by browsing the Market website, unless you happen to stumble upon them in the listings of featured, top free or top paid apps. Granted, they are clear about the Android Market website serving as a showcase of apps only right at the top of the new ...
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Labels: android, marketplace, mobile, webservices
¶ 5:33 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Web 2.0
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Web 2.0
¶ 7:59 PM 0 comments
View more presentations from Satyajeet Singh.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
[Google Fast Flip] Redesigning the Web for Touch Screens
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
If the device are touch enabled, then websites need to be too, here's how
Redesigning the Web for Touch Screens
A new crop of touch-based devices is changing the way users interact with Web pages. By Erica Naone Last week, in an essay criticizing Adobe's Flash platform, Apple CEO Steve Jobs drew attention to, among other things, its lack of support for touch--something essential to the experience of an iPhone or iPad. "Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers," Jobs wrote. But Flash is hardly the only Web software that wasn't designed to handle touch, and the advent of touch-based devices "is almost asking the entire Web to change its behavior from what's been built up over 20 years," says Raju Vegesna, evangelist for Zoho, a company based in Pleasanton, CA, that produces a suite of complex online Web applications. Individual problems are often small, but they add up to something more significant, Vegesna says. For example, roll-over interactions are common on many websites, but these don't work on touch devices. Other common tricks, such as hovering over a link to see the connected URL in the status bar, have to be adjusted before a user can perform the same function. A serious problem for companies like Zoho that specialize in complex Web software is that ...
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If the device are touch enabled, then websites need to be too, here's how
Redesigning the Web for Touch Screens
A new crop of touch-based devices is changing the way users interact with Web pages. By Erica Naone Last week, in an essay criticizing Adobe's Flash platform, Apple CEO Steve Jobs drew attention to, among other things, its lack of support for touch--something essential to the experience of an iPhone or iPad. "Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers," Jobs wrote. But Flash is hardly the only Web software that wasn't designed to handle touch, and the advent of touch-based devices "is almost asking the entire Web to change its behavior from what's been built up over 20 years," says Raju Vegesna, evangelist for Zoho, a company based in Pleasanton, CA, that produces a suite of complex online Web applications. Individual problems are often small, but they add up to something more significant, Vegesna says. For example, roll-over interactions are common on many websites, but these don't work on touch devices. Other common tricks, such as hovering over a link to see the connected URL in the status bar, have to be adjusted before a user can perform the same function. A serious problem for companies like Zoho that specialize in complex Web software is that ...
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Labels: design, webservices
¶ 1:22 PM 0 comments
[Google Fast Flip] The Top 5 HP Products We Would Like To See, Post-Palm Buyout
Sent to you by mlsj12 via Google Fast Flip:
I want to get back to link blogging about the technology of the media landscape. So I sent a lot of time finding websites that make it easy to post he stoeies from there blog/website to mine, one of the is Google's Fast Flip, so enjoy the articles coming from here.
The Top 5 HP Products We Would Like To See, Post-Palm Buyout
The Top 5 HP Products We Would Like To See, Post-Palm Buyout just drop $1.2 billion on Palm to simply sit on the assets. There have to be major plans in the works to leverage webOS and slam out some killer consumer devices. This could be huge for not only both companies, but for you and me. The iPhone Leak Gets Ugly: Police Raid Gizmodo Editor's House, Confiscate Computers TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges iPhone Leak Investigation Pauses As DA Ponders Gizmodo Shield Law Defense AdMob: Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S....
Read full story ¶ 7:51 AM 0 comments
I want to get back to link blogging about the technology of the media landscape. So I sent a lot of time finding websites that make it easy to post he stoeies from there blog/website to mine, one of the is Google's Fast Flip, so enjoy the articles coming from here.
The Top 5 HP Products We Would Like To See, Post-Palm Buyout
The Top 5 HP Products We Would Like To See, Post-Palm Buyout just drop $1.2 billion on Palm to simply sit on the assets. There have to be major plans in the works to leverage webOS and slam out some killer consumer devices. This could be huge for not only both companies, but for you and me. The iPhone Leak Gets Ugly: Police Raid Gizmodo Editor's House, Confiscate Computers TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges iPhone Leak Investigation Pauses As DA Ponders Gizmodo Shield Law Defense AdMob: Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S....
Read full story ¶ 7:51 AM 0 comments
