Today's Tabbloid: Comments Dead, Twitter Holds Smoking Gun (Read Write Web)

13 July 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]
WEB NEWS in the related conversation - in real time.”
Comments Dead, Twitter Holds

Smoking Gun [Read Write Web]
JUL 13, 2009 03:38A.M.
This evolving stream of truth (good and bad) is about to stare us in the
face every time we visit our pages. It will be interesting to see how this
will affect blogging as we know it. Do you think bloggers will elevate their
At the recent Real-Time CrunchUp 2009, Khris Loux, CEO of one of the
game to gain accolades or simply become gratuitously extreme in order
web’s largest commenting services, announced the
to stir conversation? To reserve an Echo subscription, visit the JS-Kit
“death of the comment”. This declaration was extremely significant as
site.
Loux’s JS-Kit is currently installed on over 600,000 sites. He blames the
death on social media sites like Twitter and Flickr and the rise of
Discuss
“parallel channels away from [the] product”. In essence, dialogue has
moved from a singular destination to a series of parallel but separate
social networking channels.
Sponsor
WEB NEWS
Loux took the opportunity to introduce Echo - his new product that Tumblr Submissions: Create
allows publishers to embed a simple JavaScript widget and aggregate
social media and blog dialogue from across the web. This means that all Your Own Community-Powered
of the related posts from Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, Digg, WordPress and
Blogger end up below your post for the world to see. Blog [Mashable]
JUL 13, 2009 02:03A.M.
For those who are widely loved, you’ll see this as a blessing. For those
who are widely loathed, you’ll see the full wrath of the internet in colorful
cross-platform commentary. Echo further transcends existing
commenting systems with the incorporation of HTML, photo and video.
This will appears to be a truly amazing tool for mash up contests,
political debates and global events.
Said Loux, “When Robert Scoble saw this his response was, ‘blogging is
back’.” Scoble’s own Building 43 project aggregates comments into the
Community 43 page from various social media sources using hashtags. There’s a common wisdom that personal blogging has slowly given way
However, where Scoble’s community dialogue gets buried as new media to microblogging: online sharing through Twitter and Facebook. Popular
comes in, Echo produces a live feed that stays visible with the source blogger Steve Rubel is a prime example: he recently declared that he
material. Said VP Product Strategy and Community, Chris Saad,”We look would switch from blogging to life-streaming on Twitter, FriendFeed and
for links back to the source page inside tweets/FriendFeed etc and bring Facebook.
1
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected] 13 July 2009
But while personal blogging may have waned, professional blogs (like
this one) have thrived. There are new, lightweight blogging communities
springing up, too – Tumblr and Posterous being the most prominent
examples (see Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head). These platforms
are much less about long-form writing and more about instantly sharing
snapshots of life: photos, videos, quotes and audio clips. But these still
require you to update them everyday, and for a single writer, it’s tough to
maintain a flow of new content and ideas.
Enter Tumblr Submissions, a Tumblr feature launched earlier

this week that makes the blogging process totally collaborative.
Building upon recent successes with Eat Sleep Draw, This is why you’re
fat and Cute Overload, the service has made this form of community
blogging available to all.
In short, you can now set up a blog on, say, cute cat pictures, or the best
graffiti in Brooklyn, or long-exposure photography, enable submissions
on the Customize page and wait for the new content to flood in via the
web or email.
With free content from your readers, what’s your excuse for not updating
your blog? Reviews: Facebook, FriendFeed, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter
Tags: posterous, steve rubel, tumblr, twitter
WEB NEWS
Remember Silverlight? Version

3 Launch and Features [Read
Write Web]
JUL 13, 2009 01:48A.M.
Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 and Expression 3 were released on July 9th to

favorable reviews. The original Silverlight shipped in Fall 2007 as
Microsoft’s first programmable web browser plug-in. It’s a 4MB
Flash/Flex competitor that runs on Mac OS, Windows, Linux, and
mobile devices. While Flash definitely holds the market share for
machine installs, according to Microsoft, “In less than nine months since
its release, more than 1 in 3 Internet devices now have Silverlight 2
2
installed.” will certainly play a key role in how the market is carved out in the years
to come.
Sponsor
Discuss
While this market penetration may seem high to some, the fact that
Silverlight does not have widespread name recognition is perhaps a
testament to the seamlessness of the service. In it’s third iteration,
Silverlight 3 offers some interesting new features including the following
improvements: WEB NEWS
1. Streaming Support: Silverlight changes and adapts the video HOW TO: Experience the
quality of a media file based on available bandwidth and CPU conditions
in order to deliver an optimized viewing experience. This provides Apollo 11 Moon Landing in
support for live and on-demand true HD (720p+) streaming. Video giant
Netflix first employed the platform in 2007 to power its instant viewing Realtime [Mashable]
service. With the new streaming support, the holding back HD video JUL 13, 2009 12:31A.M.
sites is their own limited catalogues.
2. Sketchflow: Expression Studio’s SketchFlow allows for rapid user

interface prototyping. This means that concepts and projects can evolve
seamlessly without the need for lengthy redesigns. Developers are also
able to apply their sketches to a 3D plane and add animation and
annotations to them. Designers and developers are reporting that
Sketchflow cuts down mock up times significantly.
3. Out-of-browser Capabilities: Similar to Adobe’s AIR and Mozilla’s

Prism, Silverlight enables applications to be placed in a restricted store
on a users machine. Users are then provided a direct link to the
application from their desktop or start menu. Silverlight also tests for a
network connection and automatically syncs and stores files depending
on that connection. This ensures point back up.
Did you know that in just 8 days, it will be the 40th anniversary of one of
mankind’s greatest achievements? It was on July 20th, 1969 that Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on
a celestial body beyond the earth. And while astronauts now make
regular trips to space (although not today, due to mother nature), the
Apollo 11 mission and the famous Armstrong line still live on as turning
points in human history.
Now a new project aims to recreate the entire Apollo 11 mission, from the
time of launch until the Americans set foot on the lunar surface. This
One of Silverlight 3’s early projects is French-based Eeple’s Board. The
website, We Choose the Moon, is using history, Flash, and social
project was started by a 19-year-old computer science student and is a
media to let us all relive the key moments of that great mission.
virtual cork board with pictures, posters and articles. As with a real cork
board, messages and notes can be layered to produce a media collage. In
The project, spearheaded by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
this case, the media includes videos, blog posts and music files.
and Museum and made possible by AOL, goes through 11 stages of the
original Apollo 11 mission. It is a full-featured Flash website that
A year ago, Silverlight’s penetration was 17%, today it’s at a third of all
recreates the mission. It provides information on the astronauts, has
users. Compared to the 99% market penetration of Flash 9 and 86%
mission countdown timers, displays the current status of the Apollo 11
penetration of Flash 10, this is extremely low. It will be interesting to see
spacecraft, and even updates you on the mission status via Twitter.
if Silverlight 3’s features will increase the rate of adoption. Partnerships
3
Clicking on the pulsating icons will provide image galleries, videos, and WEB NEWS
more.
Endeavour’s Journey: Shuttle
Launch and Outer Space
Resources [Read Write Web]
JUL 12, 2009 11:30P.M.
The beauty of the project is that it all occurs in realtime. So when 9:32
AM ET on July 16th rolls around, Saturn V will launch on the website,
corresponding to the exact times and dates of the original mission. We
Choose the Moon makes it incredibly easy to follow the mission – you In the early hours of the morning, Commander Mark Polansky sat
can install a desktop widget or a widget for your Facebook or MySpace watching the Tour de France when he got the call that they’d be fueling
page (although the Facebook one seems to be broken at the moment). NASA Endeavour’s external tank. Nearly 30,000 of his Twitter followers
woke up and rejoiced at the news. Today we’re going to see lift off.
And don’t forget about Twitter. There’s not one, but three different
accounts to follow the Apollo mission: Houston Mission Control, the The NASA Endeavour was set to launch to the International Space
Eagle Lunar Module, and the Apollo 11 Spacecraft. On top of that, there’s Station today at 7:13PM EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida after a 24
a broadcast by Shoutcast radio with audio of the mission. hour lightning-induced delay. The mission was delayed several times and
while Commander Mark Polansky’s Twitter account and NASA’s official
The result is a one-of-a-kind retelling and tribute to one of the most account announced that the launch was likely to happen, online viewers
important events in history. The JFK Presidential library and AOL really watched via NASA TV as the mission was scrubbed with only minutes to
outdid themselves in building this website, and we are eager to relive this spare. The launch has been rescheduled for 6:51PM EDT tomorrow.
event with the rest of the world through We Choose The Moon, which, by
the way, is named after a line in President Kennedy’s famous speech that Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher
launched the moon initiative. One suggestion though: please provide a Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian astronaut Julie
way for people to discuss the landing together. A chat feed, a feed Payette are set to replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata at Japan
of recent tweets, something. Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory. The 16-day effort will
complete construction of the laboratory and astronauts will attempt 5
The next step: the Mashable Moon News Channel. Just give us a hundred space walks to create an exposed experiment platform.
years or so, we’ll eventually get there.
Sponsor
Reviews: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter
Tags: aol, moon, we choose the moon The live broadcast as well as additional resources are available on
NASA’s Multimedia Page. Below are some additional space-related
resources you might want to check out before tomorrow’s scheduled
launch:
4
In an increasingly mobile world, location-based services (or LBS for

short) have undergone rapid growth. Whether it’s new players like
Zhiing making their entrance or big players like Google creating LBS
social networks like Google Latitude, everyone seems to realize that the
NASA Collaborate:Those interested in joining NASA’s online groups
location market is a high potential industry.
can connect via Facebook, Ustream, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.
Rather than waiting for press releases, fans can get their updates straight
Numbers earlier this week from research firm Gartner agree
from astronauts, scientists and NASA executive.
with this assessment: the number of users of location-based services
is set to double to 95.7 million this year, up from 41 million a year ago,
Google Sky and Hubble’s KML plug-in files: Google Sky allows
which should result in over $2 billion in revenue. With more and more
users to view high resolution images of the night-sky. Hubble image
iPhone, Android, and mobile apps taking advantage of more readily
plug-ins make for an extremely crisp intergalactic travel experience. You
available GPS and LBS technology, we have to ask: what’s next for
can search for planets, galaxies, nebulae and stars and zoom into them
location-based services?
with great precision.
According to Gartner, the only way is up. According to the firm, the
NASA Satellite Tracking & Heavens Above NASA Satellite
greater availability of GPS phones, reduced prices, and app stores have
Tracking offers users a number of options to track more than 2,500
all contributed to the rapid growth of location tools.
satellites, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, Heavens Above offers satellite predictions, sky charts and
For example, with the iPhone 3G now priced at $99 (with service
info on a number of comets.
agreement), GPS-enabled phones are within the reach of many
consumers. Gartner also predicts that free location-based services (i.e.
Discuss
free iPhone apps) will gain further traction, with 40 to 50 percent of all
users in North America and Western Europe using these tools in the next
four years.
Why location is important

WEB NEWS
Location-Based Services: Are

You Using Them? [Mashable]
JUL 12, 2009 10:29P.M.
5
Tags: android, google latittude, gps, iphone, lbs, location-based service,

Yowza, Zhiing
WEB NEWS
Get Rid of Dark Under-Eye

Circles and Puffiness [Health]
[LIfehacker[Health]]
JUL 12, 2009 08:00P.M.
We’ve been witness to several trends in social media and information

technology in general. Demand for faster or real-time information,
usability, and an increasing reliance on the mobile web are just three
emerging trends.
Apps are responding in kind. Zhiing is a new mobile app for sending
friends your location as quickly as possible, Yowza sends you coupons Whether you had a late night out or just a late night, those dark circles
based on what stores are nearby, and Google Latitude helps map out under your eyes are casting you in a less than pretty light. Here are some
where you and all of your friends are. This type of information helps get quick tip to look better, with absolutely no cucumbers involved.
the most relevant information to you as quickly as possible. Weather
forecasts, nearby friends, and local train schedules are automatic. Photo by //amy//.
This is why we need to be watching the evolution of location-based DIY weblog WikiHow lists some ways to do away with dark circles.
services over the next few years. It’s directly correlated with the rising Among them is to take a washcloth and wet it using cold water, then
popularity of GPS-enabled smartphones, particularly the ones with app squeeze out the excess droplets over your eyes. You might also try
stores. As long as these phones grow in popularity (they will), then wetting and freezing a cotton swab, then gently wiping under the affected
location-based services will spread until, one day, they become as areas. Keep your eyes closed when applying, and do your best not to
common as the cellphone itself. flinch.
Are you using location-based services? Tell us your favorites in the Manual massaging not doing the trick? The culprit might be too much
comments. salt in your diet.
Excess salt causes the body to retain water in unusual places,

Location-based Services (LBS): Are You Using Them?(polling) and this can result in puffiness under the eyes. Too much salt
can also impair your circulation, and cause the blood vessels
Reviews: Android, Google under the skin to appear bluer.
6
Hit up the full post for ten more tips, and let us know what you do to get
rid of dark circles (if you do). And while the eyes have it, check out
previously mentioned Windows application Eye Relax to help remind
you when to give your scanners a much-needed break.
How to Get Rid of Black Circles Under Your Eyes [WikiHow]
WEB NEWS
LazyFeed: Get the News, Vids,

and Pics You Want Without
Even Trying [Read Write Web]
JUL 12, 2009 07:04P.M.
Appealing to users’ laziness is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, you

risk offending users who like to think of themselves as essentially
industrious, on-top-of-it, finger-on-the-pulse go-getters.
Although LazyFeed combs through about 100,000 of the most popular

On the other hand, who are we kidding? We love being lazy, and if your
blogs online, users can also add specific blogs, Twitter profiles, Flickr
app will allow for ever more user laziness, well, that’s just what we call
streams, and Delicious accounts for a more personalized feed of
“driving innovation,” now isn’t it? For those of us who are too lazy for
information and recommended topics. Topics are updated in real time,
RSS feeds but still in the market for real-time, personalized blog
so users get up-to-the-minute information.
searches, we recommend checking out LazyFeed. We’ve got invites, too;
just keep reading.
The drawbacks are apparent. Users can’t refine searches; for example, I
can have “realtime” and “search” in my topics list, but I can’t have a
Sponsor
“realtime+search” topic. And there’s no way to tell LazyFeed to look for
certain types of content within certain domains or accounts. Nor is there
a way to limit the stream to certain types of media or block certain tags
The site launched just two days ago and appears to be a bottomless pit of
(such as “marketing”) from appearing in the results.
information culled from the depths of the blogosphere and sorted around
a simple system of tags. Users type in a tag or single-word search term,
Still, lazy beggars can’t be choosers. In other words, it’s still a nifty little
and LazyFeed returns videos, photos, and blog posts tagged with that
tool that we barely had to lift a finger to use, and we did get some good
term. Users are then prompted to add that term as a topic, which
reading out of it. Check out our screencast, and if you’re one of the first
essentially means the search is saved and results will be returned in real
100 interested parties to read this, you can sign up with the promo code
time through the left-hand topics menu.
“Lazyrww.” You’re welcome.
Discuss
7
WEB NEWS On top of the novelty of being able to vanish behind a black glass door,
his workspace has some nifty details. As seen in the photos below, the
The Monolithic Office [Featured keyboard tray is the original organization try from the Ikea wardrobe, he
turned it into an organizer/keyboard tray by cutting out a recess for a
Workspace] piece of smoked glass he salvaged. The lighting in the wardrobe is
provided by a set of LED disc lights, controlled by a switch mounted on
[LIfehacker[Featured the side of the keyboard tray. The workspace appears nearly cable free
thanks to all the cables being routed behind the back panel of the
Workspace]] wardrobe. The end result is a clean and sleek workspace that scarcely
JUL 12, 2009 07:00P.M. gives away its beginning as a lowly basement. Excellent work Adam!
Remodeling a room is a great way to get a fresh start for your new office.
It’s even better when your room is the a nice big basement waiting for
some finishing touches.
Lifehacker reader Adam Selwood is getting ready for the arrival of a new
baby—congratulations Adam!—and trying to use the space in his home
more efficiently. The basement, previously just used for storage, was
slated to be turned into a home office.
Those of us who have had basement offices or offices with no windows

can attest to the importance of making sure your windowless office has a
sense of space and lightness to it. Very few people want to work in a hole
in the ground, Adam did an excellent job making his basement office feel
roomy by using bright lighting, light colored flooring, and an uncluttered
floor plan. From his notes on the picture you see above:
In preparation for the pending arrival of our first child, we

decided to renovate our basement into a multipurpose living
and work space.
We build the office into one of four Ikea PAX wardrobes.

Most of the cabling is hidden behind the wardrobe leaving the
workspace nice and clean. The keyboard tray is a hacked
drawer usually used to store ties or belts. I also put some spot
lighting in a couple of places to lighten the space up.
The final result is a functional space that is very comfortable

to work in that can be easily hidden away.
8
One of the great things about the emergence of live video is the
accessibility of major world events. We clearly saw the power of live
video with Obama’s inauguration and Michael Jackson’s memorial. It’s
even being used to raise money for charity this weekend through the
Mario Marathon.
And thus we get to SpaceVidCast, which, in partnership with Ustream,

has the one of the few HD feeds of tonight’s launch of the Space Shuttle
If you have a workspace of your own to show off throw the pictures on
Endeavour – press the play button below to start the stream.
your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and
Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for
NASA has been embracing social media for a while now – just look at
you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
how Astronaut Mike Massimino has used Twitter and live video and the
tweets of the Mars Phoenix Lander. And since I am a huge space
OFFICE NAME [Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool]
enthusiast (I was at one time a Physics and Astronomy major, after all),
this type of live streaming implementation excites me.
Now we just need to have the astronauts use Ustream…in space!!! In the
meantime, get your space exploration fix by watching the shuttle launch
with us. Blast off is scheduled for 7.14pm ET:
WEB NEWS
LIVE: Space Shuttle Launch

Video Stream [Mashable] Reviews: ustream
JUL 12, 2009 06:41P.M.
Tags: live video, NASA, space shutt, ustream
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WEB NEWS WEB NEWS
Ask The Commenters: We 12 Companies Targeting Early

Broke It Edition [Hive Mind] Tech Adopters [Read Write
[LIfehacker[Hive Mind]] Web]
JUL 12, 2009 06:30P.M. JUL 12, 2009 06:00P.M.
Our mission at
ReadWriteWeb is to explore the latest Web technology products and

trends. We’re fortunate to have a great group of sponsors who support
this goal. So, once a week, we write a post about them; about who they
are, what they do, and what they’ve been up to lately. We hope you’ll pay
them a visit as a way to show your appreciation for their sponsorship of
this site.
Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? ReadWriteWeb is

one of the most popular blogs in the world and is read by a sophisticated
audience of thought leaders and decision-makers. We have several
Thanks to the construction dust caused by recent site changes, the Rube innovative new features in our sponsor packages that we’d love to tell
Goldberg machine that runs our comment aggregation is getting a tune you about. Email our COO Bernard Lunn for all the details.
up. Here’s your chance to tell us features you’d love to see.
Sponsor
Normally on Sunday afternoon we publish a roundup of interesting,
entertaining, or otherwise notable comments from the Friday Open
Comment thread. Since our remodeling project began earlier this week, Ready to learn more about the smart companies that support this site
we’ve run into a small hitch but assure you that the Ask the Commenters you love to read? Read on...
roundup will return to its normal format and schedule next week. Never
one to waste a good time slot however, we’re using the Ask the Skip to info about: Socialtext: enterprise 2.0 | Mashery: API
Commenter mishap to open up the floor to hear your ideas regarding management services | Rackspace: cloud computing experts | Aplus.net:
future improvements. Web hosting | Crowd Science: demographic data | Hakia: semantic
search | Weebiz: business networking | Mollom: spam filtering |
In an effort to make this an organically—albeit informal—grown poll, Domain.ME: .me domain registrar | SiSense: Business intelligence | Wix:
read over the comments other people have left already and if someone Flash websites | Media Temple and SixApart: our hosts and blogging
has mentioned something you were planning on suggesting, tack on your software
wish to their comment as a reply. When everyone is done leaving
constructive comments we’ll have a nice laundry list of things to take to
our IT staff after we ply them with alcohol and delicious pastries. Sound
off in the comments below with your wishes for future Lifehacker Socialtext
extreme makeovers.
Socialtext provides an enterprise wiki platform for organizations
10
who want to accelerate knowledge sharing, foster collaboration, or build steps to scaling your business development using Web services” to
online communities. discover how you can use APIs for your business.
Socialtext is currently offering a free white paper entitled “5 Best You can find out more about APIs and their business use at
Practices for Enterprise Collaboration.” It explains how collaboration www.mashery.com.
solutions (a.k.a. Enterprise 2.0) can “dramatically reduce enterprise
cycle times and costs. These results may be critical to survival in difficult Rackspace
economic times, and the right collaboration solution is the easiest, most
cost effective way to achieve them.”
Download Socialtext’s free white paper at http://socialtext.com.
Crowd Science
Rackspace is one of the world’s largest hosting providers, but it’s also
competing in the cloud computing arena. In October Rackspace
announced two major acquisitions: SliceHost and JungleDisk. Slicehost
is a popular cloud computing and hosting provider with about 15,000
users, while JungleDisk is one of our favorite online backup services.
JungleDisk used to rely on Amazon’s S3 storage solution, but it now also
supports Rackspace’s cloud storage solution. At the same time,
Rackspace also announced a new suite of services, Rackspace Cloud
Hosting, which combines a hosting platform (CloudSites) with a cloud
Crowd Science gives online publishers reports on the demographics and
storage solution (CloudFS), and, in the long run, a tight integration with
attitudes of their audience. We at ReadWriteWeb have signed up to this
Slicehost’s services.
new service, because demographic data is something we’ve struggled to
get in the past. It’s important for any online business to know their
Click here to explore Rackspace’s hosting and cloud computing
audience, so Crowd Science is a welcome addition to the stats armory
solutions.
that most of us in the Internet biz use.
Aplus.net
You can sign up to get demographic data by clicking here.
Mashery
Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage

Aplus.net offers a variety of services relating to Web hosting, including
their APIs using Mashery’s expertise. At the “Business of APIs”
shared hosting, dedicated server, managed hosting, Web design,
conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that
marketing and online advertising services, search engine optimization, e-
while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on
commerce solutions, and domain registration.
to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com,
Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper “Five
11
You can register for Aplus.net here. Weebiz is the social network for companies. It’s the place where you can
promote your products and services, meet new clients, suppliers and
Hakia partners, share valuable industry information, and leverage your
business relations. Weebiz puts companies at the center of a hub where
opportunities converge. It is a beautiful and simple-to-use tool that
provides the perfect environment for business networking.
You can pre-register your company on Weebiz by clicking here.
Mollom
The web is changing. User contribution is now what makes or breaks a

site. Allowing users to react, participate and contribute while still
keeping your site under control can be a huge challenge. Mollom is a
Web service that helps you identify content quality and, more
importantly, helps you stop spam on your blog, social network or
community website. When site moderation becomes easier, you have
more time and energy to interact with your community.
Hakia is a semantic search engine. It delivers a new search experience
based on focus, clarity, and credibility. You can compare Hakia to Google
Mollom is currently protecting over 9,000 active websites and has
and Bing here.
caught over 83 million spam messages since it started. Its average
efficiency is 99.96%. Find out more on the Mollom website.
Hakia currently powers the contextual advertising link engine at
ReadWriteWeb with its semantic advertising module, Contexa. Contexa
Domain.ME
provides page-level contextual analysis (in this case, of blog posts) on the
fly and outputs keywords that represent the meaning of the page along
with their meaning score. The Contexa system then matches
ReadWriteWeb sponsors’ requirements with the contextual
representation of the page to provide relevant ads for readers. Contexa is
offered as a service and can be integrated into any ad system.
Learn more about Contexa by clicking here.
Weebiz
.Me is a true phenomenon among TLDs. With its unforgettable meaning

and limitless word combination possibilities, .Me gives a truly personal
tone to your domain name. If you are looking for a name that speaks for
itself .Me is your best choice. Let .Me speak for your online business or
personal blog.
.Me potential is enormous and it simply asks for you to be creative and
12
coin the name that suits you best. If you have a great, original idea for a everything created and published with its Flash platform search-engine
domain name, register .Me before it’s taken. To check out other ideas, friendly. Its premium packages allow users to connect to their own
explore the world of .Me. domain, integrate Google Analytics, add extra storage, and much more.
SiSense Our Gracious Hosts and Blogging Software
SiSense sees enterprise business intelligence as being a heavy and

expensive project that requires a ton of IT support. Its main product,
Prism, enables immediate deployment and connects to any data source,
dynamically. In doing that, it frees IT from the need to maintain and
build data warehouses, OLAP cubes, and refresh reports. It also frees
users to use any business intelligence methodology, reports and charts, ReadWriteWeb is hosted by Media Temple and is published using
to bring more common sense and provide them with uncommon SixApart’s Movable Type.
insights.
If you’ve ever wondered what ReadWriteWeb looks like behind the
SiSense Prism is a powerful business intelligence tool, easy to learn and scenes, or if you’ve never seen the Movable Type publishing interface -
use, that works on your desktop. Create stunning visuals, reports and that’s it on the left. We recently upgraded to MT 4.23, which is the latest
performance dashboards using a smart tool that is fast and easy to use. version. We got onto this release as soon as it was available - in fact our
contacts at Six Apart emailed the actual code to us before it was up on
Wix their website. That’s customer service for you!
The companies above pay our rents or mortgages and we appreciate it.
We hope you’ll stop by their sites and see what they’ve got to offer.
Have you got a smart company that could use some more visits
by the sophisticated readers of a blog like ReadWriteWeb’s?
Drop us a line and let’s talk.
Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!
Discuss
WEB NEWS
Stop Living Paycheck to

Wix is a powerful Flash platform that enables millions of people to get Paycheck [Finances]
online with their own custom Flash websites for free. At the heart of Wix
is an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and an impressive range of fully [LIfehacker[Finances]]
customizable Flash templates. Users can choose from templates or create JUL 12, 2009 06:00P.M.
their Flash Web content from scratch, all with a simple click, drag, and
drop.
But don’t be fooled by its simplicity. With bold innovation, Wix makes
13
WEB NEWS
Take Awesome Sunset

Photographs [Photography]
[LIfehacker[Photography]]
JUL 12, 2009 05:00P.M.
Every financial life has a rough patch here and there and sometimes
temporarily stretching things from paycheck to paycheck is unavoidable.
Avoid making living paycheck to paycheck your way if life with these tips.
Photo by dslrninja.
Living pay check to pay check is a dangerous game to play and short of a
sudden financial catastrophe that completely wipes you out, you should
avoid such an arrangement at all costs. Over at The Simple Dollar they’ve
put together a guide to weaning yourself off paycheck to paycheck living
that includes one particularly hazardous financial habit to get into:
Sunsets are one of nature’s more spectacular displays, and a good one is
Don’t use your ATM receipt or check ledger as “permission”
worth preserving with a photograph. Take pictures that will capture the
to spend. If you’ve ever looked at an ATM receipt or at your
perfect dusk moment with these photography tips. Photo by Mike Baird.
checkbook ledger to find out if you can afford something, the
answer is that you can’t. Don’t even bother to look. You can’t
Photographing sunsets can be rather tricky. On one end of the spectrum,
afford it. Looking at that receipt and then going ahead with
you’ve got dull and under-exposed images. On the other end, over-
the purchase is nothing more than an agreement that you
saturated and blown-out captures. Many a tourist has snapped a picture
want to continue living paycheck to paycheck. If you’re
of a sunset that was strikingly beautiful to them at the time of the
tempted to peek or to use your balance as justification that an
picture, but the photo looks bland upon viewing.
unnecessary purchase is okay, you’re perpetuating living
paycheck to paycheck. You’re choosing to be chained to your
Over at wikiHow, they’ve put together a tutorial to help you get sunset
desk, at the mercy of your boss.
pictures that look as good in a frame as they did at the beach. If you’re
shooting with a DSLR, you’ll be able to manually adjust your exposure to
While your overhauling your situation, it might be a good time to check
make sure you’re not blowing out your image. If you’re trying to capture
out some techniques related to getting away from pay check to pay check
a sunset with a simple point and shoot you’re not entirely out of luck:
living like: how to establish a healthy emergency fund, using a sub-
account to save for unexpected expenses, and go cash only to cut back on
Few cameras will get a perfect exposure all the time, and
excessive spending. Check out the full article below for more tips and if
many will require tweaking every time. Some cameras are
you have some of your own, share them in the comments below.
smarter about photographing sunsets than others. Many will
require some degree of exposure compensation. If you’re
The First Steps Away from Paycheck-to-Paycheck Living
using center-weighted or spot metering, you may find it
[TheSimpleDollar]
useful to meter on one of the brighter (but not the brightest)
parts of the sky, use your auto-exposure lock, and then
recompose.
When in doubt, always slightly under-expose. You can brighten a dark

image to bring out detail but there is no coming back the loss of detail
caused by blindingly white highlights.
How To Photograph a Sunset [wikiHow]
14
WEB NEWS
5 NEW Twitter Games to Make

Tweeting Fun [Mashable]
JUL 12, 2009 04:47P.M.
Snods (Social Networks Online Defense Squad) is a role playing game of

cops and robbers. Use your Twitter account to earn virtual money, take
on missions, capture other players, and beef up your stats. Oh, and did
we mention that your missions are to “capture” Twitter’s most popular
users?
Three months ago, we profiled 6 Twitter Games To Make Tweeting Sound familiar to another very popular Twitter game? Check out #5 on
Fun. These great games can still keep you entertained and spice up your this list to see what we mean.
Twitter feed (although two of them are now defunct).
3. Tweefight
But that was before Oprah, Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN, and the resulting
mainstream adoption of the social media darling. So it stands to reason
that there are new Twitter games to curb our boredom.
As we created this new list, one thing became abundantly clear: Twitter
games have really stepped it up to a completely different level.
From more comprehensive trivia games to Twitter RPGs, these games
are not only entertaining, but some are downright addictive. With that,
we present 5 new Twitter games to make tweeting even more fun:
1. @Trivia
Have a Twitter follower you just want to beat the snot out of every once
in a while? Instead of a embarking on a real-life brawl, how about trying
Tweefight, which pits your accounts against your archenemies?
The game calculates rank in order to determine who wins the fight, but
you can improve your odds by using power-ups (that unfortunately cost
money). Think of it as Google Fight for the Twitter crowd.
4. 140 Mafia
About a month ago, a company called Triv140 created its attempt at

Twitter Trivia, known fittingly as Trivia on Twitter. While there were
Trivia services like @PlayTwivia on the market, none caught our
attention like Trivia did.
The game is simple: reply to @Trivia with the answers to questions

tweeted by Trivia. What really impressed us was its ability to monetize,
through sponsors that would provide real prizes to Trivia contestants.
Trivia is absolutely engaging and already has found a business model.
What more can you ask for? 140 Mafia is another Twitter RPG that has you recruiting friends,
managing your mob, and trying to take over the Twitter mafia. This
2. Snods game is in the same vein and class as SNODS and Twitter’s best-known
and most popular game…
15
5. Spymaster
This list wouldn’t be complete without the game that has revolutionized
If the glass lanterns we featured yesterday just don’t seem fancy enough,
the meaning and quality of all Twitter games: Spymaster. The game is
you can always try your hand at recycling your tin cans into decorative
so deep, so complex, and so addicting that we had to write a 3000+ word
votives, a similarly cheap, easy, but nice-looking decoration.
guide to explain how to use it (see Spymaster Twitter Game: The
Complete Guide). It’s created addictions and controversies on its path to
Fine Gardening magazine has a detailed tutorial on turning soup cans
Twitter immortality.
into outdoor votive holders. You’ll need some cans, sand, water, and a
freezer. To help the can keep its shape when you’re tapping holes in it
From spies to leveling to advanced tactics to virtual currency, Spymaster
with a nail and a hammer, you fill it with wet sand and freeze it to create
has become the standard in Twitter games. Will someone top it? Maybe
a solid core.
eventually, but it will not be a simple task, because Twitter games have
really stepped it up and transformed how we play.
Their tutorial is photo-heavy with a video, so you won’t be left wanting to
see anything from a different angle. If you’ve made your own crafty DIY
Reviews: Twitter
outdoor lighting, we’d love to hear about it.
Tags: spymaster, twitter, Twitter game

How to Make Garden Lanterns [via TipNut]
WEB NEWS
Recycle Tin Cans into Garden

WEB NEWS
Lanterns [DIY]
Editor’s Pick: 10 Things We’re
[LIfehacker[DIY]]
JUL 12, 2009 04:00P.M. Dying to Know About Chrome
OS [Read Write Web]
JUL 12, 2009 03:00P.M.
16
Chrome OS is all about the move away from the desktop to the web. The
only real solution to the offline conundrum would be to bundle in a
cellular data service with the netbook so you have always-on
connectivity.
[...]
Will Chrome OS Turn into an Enterprise Play?
Although Chrome OS will launch on the netbook, how far does Google
plan to take their new technology? To the consumer desktop? To the
small business? To the enterprise? Google has already shown how
competitive they are when it comes to fighting Microsoft Office, will they
do the same in fighting Microsoft’s foothold as the business desktop OS
As founding editor of ReadWriteWeb, every weekend I’ll pick out 2-3
of choice? If so, they may have a tougher battle ahead of them than they
posts from the past week which I thought were particularly good and
think. It may be one thing to get the IT guys to ditch Office software for a
worth highlighting. The biggest news last week was probably the
simplified cloud version, but ditch their OS? Not so much. The Windows
announcement of Google Chrome OS (excellently covered by Frederic
desktop OS is designed to work with the rest of the Windows stack,
Lardinois), which many people saw as the much-anticipated ‘Google OS.’
including everything from Exchange Server to SharePoint and many
On further analysis though, there were a number of unanswered
others. In a client-server setting, IT admins create server-based policies
questions about this new product. Sarah Perez, one of RWW’s feature
that control everything about the corporate OS including browser
writers, wrote an insightful post outlining 10 things that people are dying
settings, backup policies, logon restrictions, file access, permissions,
to know about Google Chrome OS. You can click here to read the whole
updates, and so much more. What can you control when the OS is the
post, which I encourage you to do. I’ve also pasted a couple of highlights
web? Not much. And that could be a big problem.
below...
Read the full post...

Sponsor
Discuss
Sarah wrote:
What will happen when you go offline?
WEB NEWS
Select Proper Glasses for

Maximum Wine Enjoyment
[Wine] [LIfehacker[Wine]]
JUL 12, 2009 03:00P.M.
If the Chrome OS is all about running web apps in a browser, that begs
the question - what will happen when there’s no internet connection
available? Of course, Google apps like Gmail can run offline using Gears,
but Gears isn’t everywhere yet. Another likely possibility is that Chrome
OS will support the upcoming standard HTML5, which also offers offline
capabilities. However, not all web applications will support that
either...at least not immediately. That just leaves the “windowing
system” running on the Linux kernel. Will it, like any other Linux OS,
allow us to install software applications? That seems less likely since
17
Wine and Plastic Cups: Not a Perfect Pairing [via TheKitchn]
WEB NEWS
Editor’s Pick: Does Twitter

Deserve a Nobel Peace Prize
[Read Write Web]
JUL 12, 2009 01:00P.M.
The huge variety of wine glasses out there aren’t (entirely) just for show.
Learn how to enjoy different The shape and construction of different
styles of wine glasses have been designed to make different varieties of
wines even more enjoyable.
Photo by longhorndave.
If you watched the mini-documentary on wine we shared with you, Wine

for the Confused, you know to be wary of overly snobby attitudes when it
comes to wine drinking. The shape of a wine glass isn’t so much a point
of snobbery, however, as functionality. Wine glass shapes, through trial
and error over great spans of time, are crafted to maximize your
enjoyment of wine—there’s a reason, after all, that wine isn’t served in a
tankard, even if it would be cheaper for restaurants to manage.
As founding editor of ReadWriteWeb, every weekend I’ll pick out 2-3
Culinary blog Serious Eats went wine tasting and sampled the same posts from the past week which I thought were particularly good and
wines in various glasses, from plastic cups to high-end glasses. The worth highlighting. Last week Marshall Kirkpatrick, RWW’s lead writer
results of their taste testing experiment? and VP Content Development, wrote an intriguing analysis of the impact
Twitter has had on our culture. The basis of the post was a media
We tasted some pretty superb wine in everything from plastic suggestion that the Twitter founders receive the Nobel Peace Prize. It
cups to handblown lead crystal. The results were convincing: inspired Marshall to outline exactly what makes Twitter such a
what you put your wine into matters as much as the wine phenomenon. You can click here to read the whole post, which I
itself. encourage you to do. I’ve also pasted a few highlights below...
Take the 2005 E. Guigal Saint Joseph Syrah as an example. Sponsor

In a plastic cup, this $26 bottle of wine tasted like Welch’s
grape juice. In a glass specially shaped to accentuate Pinot
Noir’s aromas and flavors, it tasted very alcoholic and acidic, Marshall wrote:
with a roughness in the mouth that was unpleasant. In a glass
Riedel made for Syrah, however, the wine smelled of red and The creators of Twitter deserve big accolades because they have invented
black fruits and chocolate, and was as smooth as satin in your what could be compared to a newly discovered, very usable, radio-wave
mouth. frequency. It’s a new plane of communication. It’s truly world changing.
They go on to provide advice on purchasing glasses—spend, for example,

as much on a single wine glass as you normally spend on a bottle of wine
to calibrate your glass quality to your wine quality—and other helpful
Twitter isn’t like SMS text messages
glass tips. Have some wine-related advice of your own, glass-centric or
otherwise? Sound off in the comments below. because the visibility of Twitter messages isn’t limited to a finite set of
18
intended recipients. Twitter messages are both personal and public, Last week we asked you to share your favorite method of filtering
targeted and broadcast, experienced individually and available for internet content. While we originally intended to approach the topic
aggregate analysis by anyone who cares to process them. from a software angle, it quickly became apparent that software didn’t
cut it for most people and that the majority of you are using either a
Twitter is synchronous and asynchronous. It’s for one on one, small combination of desktop software and a proxy server/firewall or just the
group and very large group conversations. All at once! latter by itself. The following solutions range, in difficultly of installation,
from as simple as requiring five minutes to install to as complex as
It’s a place for serendipitous discovery of the unexpected and it’s a place setting up a physical computer as a Linux-based content filter.
you can go to find answers to very specific questions.
DansGuardian (Cross Platform, Free)
Perhaps most importantly, it’s a tool that lets messages leap from person
to person, from one friend network to another, in a matter of minutes, all
over the world. Email enables that as well, but there’s honestly a
significantly greater amount of friction to sending an email than there is
retweeting a tweet.
It does all this and yet it’s just a box that asks “what are you doing?”
Discuss
One way to measure whether or not Dansguardian is the right filtering

tool for you is your willingness to install and tinker with an operating
system like Linux. If OpenDNS (below) is the Mac-like “It just works!”
one click solution, DansGuardian falls into a much more Linux-like “I
WEB NEWS
can change every setting and experience real, ultimate power!” category.
Five Best Content Filtering Dansguardian runs on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X,
HP-UX, and Solaris. DansGuardian is extremely configurable and allows
Tools [Hive Five] you to do all sorts of things, like block all images, filter ads out across
your entire home network, block files from being downloaded by
[LIfehacker[Hive Five]] extension type, and control the effects of the filters, whitelists, and more
based on which computer on your network is doing the accessing. You
JUL 12, 2009 12:00P.M.
can deploy different filters for different computers based on domain,
user, and source IP so your high school student doesn’t get the same
ultra-filtered content your elementary student does. DansGuardian
needs to be paired with a proxy as it doesn’t serve the web pages itself
but only acts a filter—many users use Squid, also mentioned in the entry
for SquidGuard.
K9 (Windows/Mac, Free)
Whether you want to keep your kids eyes away from inappropriate
content or your employees from wasting time online, you’ll find a variety
of great tools available for filtering internet access in today’s Hive Five.
Photo by Zach Klein.
19
Many of us have had experiences with K9’s internet filtering, if for no

other reason than it’s used in thousands of schools across the country.
One of K9’s strong points is the division of filtered content into 60+ Hosts File (Cross Platform, Free)
categories which allows you to easily block and unblock large chunks of
their blacklist without having to get your hands too dirty. K9 is a desktop
solution; you install the software and it checks all the internet requests
you make against the filters you have specified. In an effort to overcome
the limitations of working from a static database, K9 introduced
Dynamic Real-Time Rating to actively access the content of websites and
ban them if they fall into the filter categories you’ve selected.
OpenDNS (Cross Platform, Free)
Many of you like to get your hands dirty—as evidenced by the popularity
of Dansguard and Squidguard—and tinkering with the hosts file is a
great way to do that while setting up a filter in the process. The hosts file
is essentially a mini-directory on your computer of IP addresses and
what they should be resolved to. If you go into your hosts file, for
instance, and make an entry for 127.0.0.1 pointing at www.google.com,
every time someone goes to visit google on that computer the web
browser will direct them right back to the machine they are sitting at.
You can manually edit your hosts file, but many of you use applications
OpenDNS is a perfect solution for people who either lack the time or like Hostsman to make editing and configuring easier. Editing your hosts
expertise to set up and administer a full-out content-filtering server. file is easy, but its effectiveness is largely limited to how strong the
OpenDNS replaces your current DNS server and allows you to filter blacklist you’ve downloaded or created is. If your blacklist doesn’t
every connection coming out of your house if you change the DNS include a site or a string that catches part of the site’s name, it will fail to
settings at the router level. No matter if someone is on your main block it at all.
desktop or connecting into your wireless with laptop, everything will be
filtered by OpenDNS. You can set custom filters to white list and black
list specific sites and customize the range of filters they provide for you. Now that you’ve had a chance to look over the—rather varied—list of
If you’re considering using OpenDNS as your household filter, check out tools for filtering your internet connection, it’s time to cast your vote for
our previous article on the topic. which tool you think is best:
Which Content Filtering Tool is Best?(trends)

SquidGuard/Squid (Linux, Free)
If you’ve got your own tips, tricks, or even unmentioned tools for filtering
internet access, we’d love to hear them in the comments.
SquidGuard is similar to Dansguard in that it is a stand alone filtering

tool you connect into with a proxy, in this case the popular Squid proxy.
Also like Dansguard, you have a high degree of flexibility—dream up a
combination of filtering parameters and there’s a good chance you can
make it happen with SquidGuard. No Hello Kitty between the hours of
9AM and 10PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Not a problem with the
highly customizable SquidGuard. SquidGuard is natively a UNIX-
environment only tool, and you can install it onto Linux, FreeBSD, and
so forth.
20
WEB NEWS • Am I displaying it respectfully? How you store and display

something says a lot about whether or not you truly value it.
Banish Clutter by Evaluating Cherished things don’t usually gather eons of dust in the corner of
your musty basement.
Your Collections [Clutter]
• How do I benefit from it? If your aren’t getting anything out of your
[LIfehacker[Clutter]] collection whether it’s monetary gain or a deep personal
JUL 12, 2009 11:00A.M. satisfaction, it’s time to get rid of it.
• Am I keeping it out of guilt? Whether you’re keeping it because

you’d feel guilty getting rid of relative’s things they passed on to
you or you feel guilty that you spent your hard earned money on
something silly, guilt can keep you holding on to junk for a long,
long time.
• What is the collection in the present? Not every “junky” collection

starts off life that way. The collection of cassette tapes sitting in
your garage were once used and enjoyed and it’s fine to
acknowledge that once upon a time the things in question had
value and purpose in your life and now they don’t. Admitting that
something is no longer valuable doesn’t mean you’re saying that it
never had value to you. Evaluation your collection in light of what
It’s pretty easy to get rid of useless clutter, like yard sale purchases you it is now, not what it was once upon a time.
probably should have left in the yard you found them in. What about
your collections, the stuff that might have value? Declutter them with
honest evaluation. One technique that can help when it comes time to get rid of collections
is to photograph the items before getting rid of them. Storing a few
Once bitten by the decluttering bug, most people have little trouble pictures of some sentimental items is much easier than storing the bulky
getting rid of the crap they have piled up on or in their office desk, or the items themselves. A few pictures of great grandma’s old china are a lot
magazines they didn’t get around to reading. When it comes to digging easier to store than three crates of it in the attic. If you’ve employed some
into personal collections or memorabilia, however, people can be quite tried and true techniques for helping cull your collections and reclaim
stubborn. your space, let’s hear about them in the comments below.
In the following video Marc Sotkin, of the Baby Boomer-centric blog Collection or Clutter? [via Unclutterer]
Boomer Alley, urges us to take a good hard look at our collections of
things and decide if it’s worth having them around:
WEB NEWS
The Top 10 Social Media Stories

You Might Have Missed
[Mashable]
To help you evaluate your collection, you may want to consider the JUL 12, 2009 10:56A.M.
following questions:
• Is it valuable? Most likely not. Very few collections of things have

any real value beyond the value we give to the manufacturers by
buying their stuff.
21
9. 4chan Versus Twitter: Round One – 4Chan was able to spam

Twitter’s trending topics. Learn what happened and its implications on
Twitter spam.
10. 14 iPhone Apps With Push Notification for Productivity –

Elliott Kosmicki highlights 14 useful apps utilizing one of iPhone 3.0
OS’s biggest features: push notifications.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson
Tags: Chrome OS, Google, google chrome os, michael jackson, social
media, Social Media Stories
Two big events dominated social media channels this week: the
memorial of Michael Jackson and the announcement of Google Chrome
OS. Both events captured the attention of people across the globe.
But while the King of Pop and Google dominated the headlines, there WEB NEWS
was a lot more buzzing in social media circles. We covered everything
from ImageShack getting hacked to some absolutely stunning Vimeo
Editor’s Pick: Six Reasons to
videos for design inspiration. Without further ado, here are the top 10
social media stories making headlines this week:
Stick with Your Startup [Read
1. Google to Launch Operating System – Google shook up the tech
Write Web]
world by announcing Google Chrome OS. Learn about Google’s entry to JUL 12, 2009 06:30A.M.
the OS market.
2. ImageShack Hacked by Anti-sec Movement – Every image on

ImageShack was replaced yesterday with a very unique message. Learn
more about what happened and why.
3. 12 Gorgeous Vimeo Videos for Design Inspiration – Natasha

Wescoat explores 12 breathtaking Vimeo videos that will bring out your
inner creative.
4. Michael Jackson’s Memorial: The Biggest Web Event in

History? – The response to Michael Jackson’s passing was staggering.
Read my analysis and predictions about the event’s impact on the web.
5. Google Chrome OS: Will It Kill Windows? – Let the debate on We’re starting a new feature on ReadWriteWeb, called ‘Editor’s Picks.’
Google Chrome OS begin! Will it be the OS to beat Microsoft, or will it As founding editor of the site, every weekend I’ll pick out 2-3 posts from
not be able to run Photoshop? the past week which I thought were particularly good and worth
highlighting. We’ll start with a post by Jolie O’Dell in our ReadWriteStart
6. Michael Jackson Memorial: Where People Watched It channel, which is a subsite devoted to early stage startups and geared
Online – Michael Jackson’s memorial was one of the biggest events in towards entrepreneurs. Jolie wrote an inspirational post entitled Six
the history of the web. See who was carrying the feed. Reasons to Stick with Your Startup: Survival Stories from the Trenches.
You can click on the previous link to read the whole post, which I
7. Fail Whale in Pop Culture – Fail Whale creator Yiying Lu has encourage you to do. I’ve also pasted a few highlights below...
opened a new website with a collection of fan-made Fail Whale imagery.
You have to see it to believe it. Sponsor
8. Influx of Twitter Account Suspensions Creating Confusion –

A wave of account suspensions hit Twitter last Sunday. Find out what Jolie wrote:
happened and who was affected.
22
Starting a new tech company is a labor of love. Particularly in the WEB NEWS
beginning, when funds are low, expectations are high, and the product is
still a twinkle in the developer’s eye, stressful situations under external Cartoon: That’s What Friends
pressures can lead to pull-the-plug moments.
Are For [Read Write Web]
JUL 12, 2009 06:17A.M.
I admit it: I have Facebook friends I’ve never met, people I’d be hard-
pressed to pick out of a police lineup. I’ve even created a special group
for them, just like I did for the people who I can’t believe have had the
nerve to friend me after that thing they said to me in Grade 9 math class.
Maybe a lot of the dynamic of networks like Facebook is all about

reliving our high school years... only this time, thanks to the long tail,
there’s no shortage of people who want to go to the virtual prom with us.
When we interviewed Pandora founder Tim Westergren last week, he
It’s tempting to say yes; we all get a chance to be captain of the football
shared his personal brush with startup death: In 2007, it seemed that the
team, head cheerleader, president of the debating society (what? that is
music-streaming site would have to declare bankruptcy and close shop.
too just like the others).
Pandora’s success is one reason to stick with your own startup. Here are
six more.
Sponsor
[...]
But you quickly discover that being friends with everyone means a
Thirty-Seven Cents and a Heart Full of Hope Adrenaline
deluge of information about them. It’s enough to make you sympathize
retroactively with the popular kids in school... except they never had to
Grocio founder Gerald Buckley went so far as to share the exact dollar
put up with application notifications. (I swear, I’m going to pave over my
amount of his worst fears realized:
Lil Green Patch and put in a patio with a barbecue.)
“I was $0.37 away from closing it up. Literally, that was all I
had left in the bank account. There wasn’t enough to pay next
month’s legal bills.”
However, a dramatic turn of events saved him and his startup at the last
minute. “In mid-November, Grocio won top prize in a local business
model competition sponsored by the City of Tulsa and a local bank. That
put $30K in the bank (non-equity, non-debt). Then the state of
Oklahoma awarded us $100K matching funds (again, non-equity, non-
debt). Money became less an issue and allowed us to focus on execution.”
Although the economy began changing the equation once again last fall,
Buckley encourages other startups, “I’m going to have the startup bug all
my life, I think. NEVER give up if you really believe!”
Discuss
23
More Noise to Signal
Discuss
24

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13 July 2009

WEB NEWS in the related conversation - in real time.”

Comments Dead, Twitter Holds

Enter Tumblr Submissions, a Tumblr feature launched earlier

Tags: posterous, steve rubel, tumblr, twitter

Remember Silverlight? Version

Microsoft’s Silverlight 3 and Expression 3 were released on July 9th to

2. Sketchflow: Expression Studio’s SketchFlow allows for rapid user

3. Out-of-browser Capabilities: Similar to Adobe’s AIR and Mozilla’s

In an increasingly mobile world, location-based services (or LBS for

Why location is important

Location-Based Services: Are

Tags: android, google latittude, gps, iphone, lbs, location-based service,

Get Rid of Dark Under-Eye

We’ve been witness to several trends in social media and information

Excess salt causes the body to retain water in unusual places,

How to Get Rid of Black Circles Under Your Eyes [WikiHow]

LazyFeed: Get the News, Vids,

Appealing to users’ laziness is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, you

Although LazyFeed combs through about 100,000 of the most popular

Those of us who have had basement offices or offices with no windows

In preparation for the pending arrival of our first child, we

We build the office into one of four Ikea PAX wardrobes.

The final result is a functional space that is very comfortable

And thus we get to SpaceVidCast, which, in partnership with Ustream,

LIVE: Space Shuttle Launch

Tags: live video, NASA, space shutt, ustream

WEB NEWS WEB NEWS

Ask The Commenters: We 12 Companies Targeting Early

ReadWriteWeb is to explore the latest Web technology products and

Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? ReadWriteWeb is

Socialtext provides an enterprise wiki platform for organizations

Download Socialtext’s free white paper at http://socialtext.com.

Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage

You can pre-register your company on Weebiz by clicking here.

The web is changing. User contribution is now what makes or breaks a

Learn more about Contexa by clicking here.

.Me is a true phenomenon among TLDs. With its unforgettable meaning

SiSense Our Gracious Hosts and Blogging Software

SiSense sees enterprise business intelligence as being a heavy and

Stop Living Paycheck to

Take Awesome Sunset

When in doubt, always slightly under-expose. You can brighten a dark

How To Photograph a Sunset [wikiHow]

5 NEW Twitter Games to Make

Snods (Social Networks Online Defense Squad) is a role playing game of

About a month ago, a company called Triv140 created its attempt at

The game is simple: reply to @Trivia with the answers to questions

Tags: spymaster, twitter, Twitter game

Recycle Tin Cans into Garden

Will Chrome OS Turn into an Enterprise Play?

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What will happen when you go offline?

Select Proper Glasses for

Wine and Plastic Cups: Not a Perfect Pairing [via TheKitchn]

Editor’s Pick: Does Twitter

If you watched the mini-documentary on wine we shared with you, Wine

Take the 2005 E. Guigal Saint Joseph Syrah as an example. Sponsor

They go on to provide advice on purchasing glasses—spend, for example,