Category: Web 2.0
eBay Nutcase of the Week: DJ selling "famous" 867-5309 number, from Tommy Tutone's 1982 hit
If you’re old enough to remember the news, current events and popular culture of the year 1982, we would firstly like to enquire how your joints are holding up in this cold weather. And your knees OK? How about that dodgy shoulder? And your neck? You might want to start taking some cod liver oil, you know. It really works.
Secondly, we’d like to alert you to this eBay auction – in which a US DJ is selling his business as a way of also getting rid of the New Jersey phone number 867-5309 – made famous by Tommy Tutone’s 1982 hit…
PROFILE: Mark Zuckerberg – CEO of Facebook, bitch!
For a man in charge of the planet’s largest social network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has his private life very much under wraps. Oh, he’s got an FB profile but you can’t even ask to be his friend. It seems the 706 he already has is quite enough.
My next port of call was Twitter. I wasn’t sure if he’d be fraternising with the enemy. I’m not even sure that Twitter is the enemy. I don’t even think either of the two companies know that. Anyway, I looked all the same and after a little bit of research and weeding out of the phonies…
COLUMN: Facebook – will it still be around in five years?
Facebook’s now been around for five years, but will it still be around in five years’ time? There’s a long and a short answer to that question. The short answer is yes. A website, operating at www.facebook.com, will still be going in five years. That, assuming the internet survives the next five years, is a given.
But will it still be the cultural force that it is today – 150 million users worldwide, twice the size of its nearest competitor, leading to academic misconduct, arrests, multiple lawsuits, house-trashings and viruses? I suspect the answer might be no. Click over the jump to find out why.
FarAwayFish.com: using the web to communicate with loved ones once you've gone
Though the Internet is near-ubiquitous and social networking is skyrocketing in popularity, there’ll inevitably come a point when every one of us can no longer update our status, post a tweet, upload a Flickr photo or write something pithy on our blog.
How would the friends and relatives you usually only see online know if you dropped off the end of the world? Sometimes, your friends and family will pay tribute to you online, but you can’t always rely on technophobe relatives to do that.
One solution, according to FarAwayFish.com, is to set up a special online profile that only gets unlocked and sent out once you die. Messages, photos, videos and audio can be recorded and stored for up to ten years after your death so that friends and relatives can log in and remember the happy times…
Celebrity Twitter user Stephen Fry in LIVE LIFT TRAP SENSATION
Stephen Fry, who has gone from obscure advert voice-over man and trainee Peter Ustinov to become the WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS PERSON thanks to his embracing of the tech world and Twitter in particular, has, once again, done it.
He got stuck in a lift.
Fortunately, there was a mobile signal available…
Gallery: Facebook is five today. See how it's evolved
On Friday 4th February 2005, Facebook was born. Initially designed as a way for students to connect online, the past five years has seen it grow into a huge social network with a huge variety of people connecting with friends, relatives and complete strangers on a daily basis.
In his blog post, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote:
While we at Facebook make products that enable people to share information efficiently, Facebook is mostly the product of the people who use it. Without you and the connections you make to others, the products we create wouldn’t have much meaning. So we feel fortunate to have all of you with us. To express our appreciation, we’ve created a “Thank You” gift, which will be available tomorrow in the Facebook Gift Shop for you to to give freely to others. In the spirit of celebrating connections between people, we encourage you to use this gift to give thanks to your friends, colleagues and family members with whom you are connected on Facebook.
Take a wander through the past five years and see how Facebook has evolved…
Google Maps for Mobile gets an update – with friend tracking!
There’s probably something wrong with the fact that I get little buzzes of excitement when mobile apps that I use get an update. This morning’s Google Maps for Mobile update was even buzzier than normal, though, because it introduced a new feature that people have been clamoring for for some time.
The new version of Google Maps for Mobile features a service called Latitude, which uses the GPS in your phone to track your location, and the location of your friends, much like Yahoo’s Fire Eagle service. You can see exactly where your pals are hiding out, and there’s plenty of built-in privacy control too.
Kangaroo slaughtered by Competition Commission – joint BBC, ITV and C4 online TV service axed
Project Kangaroo, the planned online telly service that would’ve combined BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content on one handy site for your viewing pleasure, has been binned.
The EVIL denier of free TV is the Competition Commission which has, incredibly, decided that it would be unfair of the Beeb, ITV and C4 to team up as this might damage rival commercial companies that operating in the same “space” – despite the fact that the rival commercial companies routinely allow their users…
BT MyPlace – personalised location-based news, with a shedload of buzzwords and adverts
Launching for the poor, embattled, snow-bound inhabitants of central London, who are currently IN CRISIS because they can’t get from Pret to Starbucks without getting a bit cold and possibly dirtying their limited edition lime green Nike Air Max 90s on the brown slush, BT MyPlace is what BT MyPlace reckons is the world’s first location-based, personal news service.
The service is co-funded by BT and Westminster Council, so is available for free whenever you’re in range of a BT Openzone hotspot in Westminster “Wireless City”. If that’s you, the “pocket concierge” service will send you all sorts of facts about your location, along with audio walking talks, guide books and restaurant tips…
Facebook finds the way to start the cash flowing in – their survey says…
I’m not sure I should feel as outraged as part of me wants to with more news of Facebook’s embracing of the commercial sector like a big cold kiss.
The social networking galacticon’s plan is to allow companies to survey Facebook users by dropping polls into our feeds. Of course, it’s up to you if you want to take them or not and, if they’re dressed up well, I should imagine…
