Category: Web 2.0
Tweet your way to employment with Twitter JobSearch
People always say that a CV or resume should be no longer than two sides of A4 paper long. Well, prepare to cut down your working history to 140 characters, because Twitter job hunting is the next big thing – if you believe a couple of new employment based startups for the service.
Google Voice launches in the USA
Damn. I want this so bad. Google Voice, formerly known as GrandCentral and acquired by the company in 2006, has finally launched officially in the US. It’s a service that gives you one phone number that can access all your phones, for life, for free.
It’s been invite-only for nearly two years, and there are apparently tens of thousands of people on the waiting list, but Google will shortly be letting some of those people in. Accounts have, in the past, gone for up to $650 on eBay.
The way it works is that you get given a mobile phone number, and then a web interface lets you redirect that number to any phone you like. Going on holiday? Redirect it to the hotel you’re staying in. Leaving the office for an afternoon? Send people to your mobile phone. Expecting a call you don’t want? Put the caller through to the fax machine.
There’s also Spinvox-esque voicemail transcription, text messaging, friend settings (so that certain people can bypass your voicemail) and call recording. There’s even conference calling, and you can add credit to the account to make very cheap international calls, just like Skype.
Sadly, the service is only available in the USA. That’s a big 🙁 for me. When can we get that going down in the UK? It’s got to be possible, right?
(via TechCrunch)
YouTube blocks music videos in Britain
YouTube, the fantastically popular video streaming service owned by Google, is in the midst of payment renegotiations with the Performing Rights Society, an agency formerly known as the MCPS PRS Alliance that collects royalties for songwriters across both digital and traditional media.
That renegotiation isn’t going too well. Talks have completely broken down, and YouTube has vowed to block British viewers from watching all “Premium” (i.e. major label) music videos from next Monday.
It’ll be possible to get round the block with a proxy server, I suspect, but the vast majority of people will suddenly wonder why their favourite band’s videos have suddenly been removed from the service.
It’s almost certainly just a strongarmed negotiating tactic from Google, and for PRS’ part they’ve asked the site to reinstate the videos until an agreement can be reached. But at the same time, Google’s trying to use its clout to bring down rates that have caused the exit of Pandora from Britain, as well as the despair of many other streaming services.
YouTube claims that PRS are responsible, saying that they’re asking for “many, many factors” more money than their previous agreement. PRS, on the other hand, say Google is trying to drive down payments despite its traffic having grown further.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens here – whether PRS will balk and cave in to a hail of bad publicity that will arise next Monday. The organisation is notoriously tenacious, though, and the whole situation could devolve into a staring match. In that case, consumers will just vote with their feet and go elsewhere – to competitors like Vimeo and MySpace video.
(via Epicenter)
iPlayer goes HD while Sky gets 3D
Sky has confirmed that they will be adding 3D functionality to their + HD satellite receiver boxes and, in slightly better if less solid news, the BBC has dropped an anvil of a hint suggesting that iPlayer will be getting a dedicated HD channel next month.
Sky tested out the service after recording episodes of…
Facebook updating homepage yet again
After the disastrous launch and eventual user acceptance of Facebook’s news feed and profile pages last year, you would have thought that the company wouldn’t mess with the site too much more for a while. But no – it doesn’t want users getting too comfortable, so next Wednesday there’ll be a new homepage.
It looks like Twitter. There’s no two ways about it. With the status box massive and front-and-centre, there’s a definite homage going on. The feed below is now real-time too, so you can see stories appear as they happen. That feature’s been around for a while but previously it wasn’t the default option.
But one feature that Facebook’s adding to the mix is filters. If you’ve got friend groups set up then you can choose to view the updates from just one group or another. That could definitely prove useful for power users, or those with very distinct friendship circles. You can also view feeds from your friends in specific Facebook groups that you’re a member of, which is quite nifty.
This is a definite improvement to the site, and should help it compete against the attention draw from Twitter, especially as Facebook’s biggest asset is that almost everyone you know is on it – something not true of its media-darling competitor.
It’s a bit of a blatant copy and should probably have been rolled into the previous update, but I suspect that many mainstream users will hardly notice the change and as a result, there won’t be the mass user revolts that have characterized previous changes to the world’s favourite social network.
(via Business Insider)
Realtime search bar coming to Twitter
The future face of Twitter has been presented to investors at a presentation in San Francisco and that face looks to include a Twitter realtime search bar right at the top of the screen.
I said before – in fact, I think it was just yesterday; yes it was – about the potential of Twitter as a new and more powerful source of search…
Google CEO calls Twitter a "Poor Man's Email System"
When Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked what he thought of Twitter, at a technology conference hosted by Morgan Stanley yesterday, he came out with the following gem: “Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of poor man’s email systems”.
Ouch. Now that’s the sound of a man hurting. Hurting because his company didn’t see the microblogging revolution coming? Hurting because they did, and backed the wrong horse – buying up Jaiku rather than Twitter? Maybe he’s just hurting because people are hacking Google to display Twitter results.
He went on:
“In other words, they have aspects of an email system, but they don’t have a full offering. To me, the question about companies like Twitter is: Do they fundamentally evolve as sort of a note phenomenon, or do they fundamentally evolve to have storage, revocation, identity, and all the other aspects that traditional email systems have? Or do email systems themselves broaden what they do to take on some of that characteristic?”
“I think the innovation is great. In Google’s case, we have a very successful instant messaging product, and that’s what most people end up using. Twitter’s success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to reach and communicate, especially if you are willing to do so publicly.”
He also gave a quick mention of Google’s new Twitter account, but got a little confused by the character limit, claiming @google is somewhere to “go ahead and listen to our ruminations as to where we are and what we’re doing in 160 characters or less”. Actually Eric, it’s 140.
(via Business Insider)
Real-time Twitter searches on Google results
Have a click on the image just here on the right and once it’s bigged itself up, you’ll notice it’s a Google search page with five Twitter results at the top. That’s because some clever soul over on MT-Hacks has created code for the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox which offers a degree of real-time search on Google…
Bebo and Slicethepie announce partnership
Second-tier social network Bebo and innovative fan-funding mechanic Slicethepie have got together to offer an attractive proposition for both Bebo users and bands using the Slicethepie service.
Slicethepie works by crowd-sourcing the A&R process, something that I strongly advocated in my series of posts on innovating digital music. People can invest in bands, and once a band has enough to make an album, any investors get a share of the revenues from selling that album, as well as a credit .
The partnership means that Bebo users will be able to review and rate content on the service, and will be paid a small fee for doing so. Bands that get financed via the Bebo showcase will gain a promotional package that Bebo claims is worth £50k, that’ll include an album launch party, promotion on the Bebo homepage, and exposure to major label A&Rs.
The first “Scout Room” on Bebo will go live this month, so if you’re in a band, it’s definitely worth a look. Just make sure you’ve got a strong presence on Bebo too. What does Bebo get out of it? More bands on a service that’s struggling to compete with Myspace, let alone Facebook’s dominance of the sector.
Skittles changes homepage to Twitter search for "Skittles"
Skittles, the little fruity sweets, have done a bit of a makeover on the Skittles.com homepage. The page now shows the real-time results for a Twitter search for “Skittles”, with a floating box to tell you a little more about the page.
There are several aspects to this that are interesting. It’s another massive step towards mainstream for Twitter (I bet Skittles is hoping that the service doesn’t go down). It’s also a massive step towards “the conversation” for Mars, which is a company that’s been plagued with criticism in the past, though admittedly not as much as rival Nestlé.
In fact, although there’s not been much stirring on the PETA message boards at the time of writing, it’s surely only a matter of time before the people behind sites like MarsCandyKills.com start flooding the service with highly-negative Tweets.
Some call this the campaign backfiring. I don’t think so. I think that it shows bravery, and a belief that the general public doesn’t really care. Personally, I think far more positively about the company that it’s happy to publicise its criticism, and I’ll be disappointed if they cave.
Skittles.com (via @robbrown)
