News

Pownce Users Soliciting Diggs

Pownce.com Kevin Rose's New Startup

Here is an interesting story I came across via Mashable Apparently, Pownce users are beginning to use their accounts to solicit diggs. It’s interesting because, Digg.com has recently implemented features that try to prohibit lobbying such as removing the top digg users list. The tactic being used on Pownce seems to be working and it will be interesting to see if Kevin Rose allows it to continue.

The last thing I would want to see on Pownce is pages and pages full of PLEASE DIGG posts. What do you think of the situation?

11 Steps To Being A Good Facebook Friend

https://i0.wp.com/jeffc.me/images/valleywaglogo.pngValleywag has put together a list of steps towards becoming a good Facebook friend. Which ones do you think work?

The steps are as follows:

1. Get in the friend zone.

2. Be the interesting one.

3. Interact with your friends.

4. Let it all hang out.

5. Remember the reality curve.

6. Fake it just a little.

7. Don’t set your relationship status to “It’s complicated.”

8. Link your social profiles to each other.

9. Make mutual “friends.”

10. Leave a wall post on birthdays.

Bonus: 11. Forget about it.

You can read about these steps in more detail by clicking here Also, don’t forget to add me as a friend on Facebook. Step 12, ask people to be your friend.

CNN Hops On The 2.0 Bandwagon

CNN Redesigns Their Site With A Web 2.0 LookCNN.com launched their redesigned web site over the weekend. The new site features one-page integrated story-telling, the largest Flash video player of its kind, local coverage, better weather, blog links, commenting, and free live video for breaking news.

Judging by the comments on the BehindTheScenes CNN Blog, quite a number of people do not like the redesign. Not surprising, considering people do not like the idea of change, especially after they have become accustomed to a certain way of seeing things.

The new CNN site definitely has a clean look but I am not too keen on the amount of gray and white used through out the site. I think if CNN wanted to really impress their viewers, they would make CNN an editable start page. Using Ajax and all sorts of other Web 2.0 goodness, CNN could of allowed users to disable or enable widgets which contained different sections of the news. By using this method, CNN probably could of pleased the majority of people by allowing the customization of the main page so that users would only see items that they were interested in. At the very least, they could of created a minimize/maximize feature on the different modules located on the front page. With that being said, I must also add that the video player on CNN is very nice! The video area is large and the quality of the video footage seems to be pretty good.

Visit CNN.com to check out their new design. When your done, come back here and leave an opinion.

FaceBook Having Trouble Staying Up

Facebook.comThird party applications may be hammering away at the Facebook API. According to Mashable, Facebook has reportedly gone down for extended periods of time today. Looks to me as if the applications combined with the enormous amount of popularity is causing Facebook to stumble a bit.

As far as I can tell, Facebook is back to normal as I recently created my own Facebook account which can be viewed here Be sure to add me as a friend if you get the chance.

Job Titles 2.0

In the latest issue of PC Magazine there is a list of job titles that were spawned due to Web 2.0 These job titles include:

Chief Evangelist
Head of a company’s sales and marketing team

Virtual World Bureau Chief
Head of a news bureau in Second Life

Brand Champion
A PR person for a particular company’s brand

Senior Interface Hacker
Writer of code to build applications and create user interfaces for podcasts

Web Product Demigod
Creator of open-source content management systems

Online Audience Development Manager
Head of effort to get a company’s site to the top of a Google or Yahoo! search results

I decided to do a little more research to see if I could come up with any more and as it turns out, I did. Here they are.

  • VP of Emerging Media
  • Chief Risk Officer
  • New Media Specialist
  • Chief Diversity Officer
  • Chief Interruptor Officer (Jaffe: This means you.)
  • Instigator
  • Content Analyst

Can you think of anything else to add to this list?

MASHup Of Problems

http://devcentral.f5.com
DevCentral has published their first in a four part series of articles related to Web 2.0 security. DevCentral has come up with a mnemonic, MASH, that describes which each article will be about. MASH stands for:

  • More of everything.
  • Asymmetric data formats
  • Scripting based
  • Hidden URLs and code

The first article highlights the letter ‘M’ more of everything.

So what’s that mean, “more of everything”? Well, Web 2.0, whether we’re talking about applications (blogs, wikis, forums, video) or the technologies that enable the applications (AJAX, XML, RSS, RDF, etc…), simply contains more of everything than its legacy predecessors.

I encourage you to read the following article HERE as it begins to describe just how difficult it is to secure Web 2.0 applications. Securing one particular script is no big deal. Securing a plethora of scripts combined into one application is apparently another problem.

E-Learning 2.0 What You Need To Know

Read/WriteWeb has put together quite an interesting article detailing E-Learning 2.0 using Web 2.0 technologies. The article provides an overview of e-learning 2.0, including the leading web apps and sites in the niche, and predictions for its future. It’s awesome to see how all of this Web 2.0 technology stuff is being implemented in such unique, informative ways.

As this article shows, there is a lot of web 2.0 activity in the e-learning space – including from the big Internet companies like Google and Apple. The current era of the Web is all about two-way communication, collaboration and ‘read/write’; and the classroom is an ideal place to utilize these technologies.

E-Learning 2.0 What You Need To Know

Let Your Greenvoice Be Heard

http://www.greenvoice.comAs reported by Mashable Greenvoice has launched a new activism community for those who love to live green. The first thing you’ll notice is the page layout and design, which I personally feel is excellent. Greenvoice is yet another platform for people to share, collaborate, communicate and voice opinions on issues related to living green.

Those who participate in the community are known as Greenvoicers, who can take as active or inactive role in the site as they wish.

Greenvoice allows users to create Campaigns. Users of Greenvoice are able to donate towards these campaigns as they wish. One thing worth noting is that the campaigns are in POUNDS and not dollars. Some of the campaigns that have already started include, Excess Packaging For Software, Free Papers, Bottled Water, Intensive Pig Farming and more.

There are also sections to write appeals or actions to oppose or support a particular campaign, a section to display videos, and each campaign has a slew of bookmarking options. These act as wikis of sorts, and Greenvoice users can contribute some information to a certain degree, whether you’re a member of the campaign or not.

Check out Greenvoice if you feel your up to the challenge of making a positive impact on the world.

DiggLabs Wins MashupAward

http://mashupawards.com

MashupAwards is a hand-picked showcase of the best web mashups with awards served on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.

The criteria involved with judging each Mashup capable of winning an award consists of: Uniqueness, Creativity, User Experience, Utility, and Content. Users also have the ability to nominate a mashup of their choice which will be reviewed by the staff of MashupAwards. MashupAwards also contains a page of information describing how to create a mashup, which contains suggestions, tips, as well as a list of the ten most popular APIs.

The winner for June 23, 2007 goes to DiggLabs.

The labs provide a broader (and deeper) view of Digg. A lot of stuff gets submitted to Digg every day, so good things can sometimes fly right past you. Labs projects look beneath the surface of the Digg community’s activities and display them in fresh and unique interfaces.

To view more information about mashups or to view all of the winners that have won an award, visit http://mashupawards.com