Toshiba's SpursEngine chip dominates in transcoding demonstration
Monday, June 09, 2008
Meebo Launches Multi-Tiered Meebo Marketing Platform
Source: http://www.centernetworks.com/meebo-marketing-advertising-platform
The Meebo Mediabar is a rich media ad panel that can run basically anything in the space from games, applications, feeds, and digital goods. Next is SparkAds which are text ads that will drive clicks to brand sites. Link Sharing currently allows for a way to share and discover links between friends and now will be used as a viral system where advertisers seed their links and then Meebo users push them around the network. The 33Across partnership allows advertisers more in-depth analysis of the campaigns run on Meebo.
What I didn't see in the notes was whether 33Across helps to increase conversion while the ads are running and whether immediate user feedback is reported. This is the key with any ad campaigns on conversational sites. People will react and it's critical that the brand is monitoring public channels for the feedback so they can optimize in real-time accordingly.
The initial brands signed to the "Meebo Marketing Platform" include: Havaianas, Sony Electronics, Universal Pictures, and the band Weezer.
I plan to watch this launch closely as viral advertising will continue to slowly grow this year. If brands maximize this type of advertising, it could change online advertising as a whole. The idea of sharing an advertisement could almost be seen as an endorsement by the sending user and could push the receiving user to actually interact with the ad. Real-time monitoring and updating is the key for success with this new type of online advertising.
This April, Meebo hired a chief revenue officer who is located in NYC. Also check out our interview with Meebo founder Seth Sternberg.
Editor's note: Meebo competitor eBuddy is a CN sponsor. Additionally, the news above was embargoed for Monday 9am, but the embargo has been broken and so we will post now per Meebo's direction.
SafeManuals Saves You When You Need a Product Manual
Source: http://www.centernetworks.com/safemanuals-product-manuals
Some manuals are offered in multiple languages including: English, Spanish, Portugese, Chinese, German, Italian and French. The English on SafeManuals is very poor. I guess it doesn't matter as long as you can easily navigate the dropdown menus to find the product you need a manual for.
What makes SafeManuals interesting is that the manuals are all user-submitted. I don't think I've seen this before on a manual download site. Instead of SafeManuals doing the work to find the manuals, users submit them into the proper buckets for product, category and language.
Another site we recently reviewed (with video demo) in the same category is Wirewize. Wirewize goes beyond just the manuals to offer customized setup advice for cables and remotes.
There's a pretty neat widget which allows you to embed product manuals on your site. The widget can be customized to only show specific brands or products.
Big Buck Bunny: CC-licensed animated short made with free/open animation tool Blender
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/306815275/big-buck-bunny-cclic.html
Mike sez, "To show off the open-source animation program Blender, a small team just finished a great ten-minute cartoon, 'Big Buck Bunny.' They were funded by foundation support and pre-orders of the DVD by the Blender community. What's more, the whole thing is Creative Commons-licensed, and all the files for the animation are available. Here in Worcester MA, our local TV station took advantage of the licensing and broadcast the thing last night in prime time." Link (Thanks, Mike!)
Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.
Do Loose Lips Sink Ships?
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AVc/~3/304522703/do-loose-lips-s.html
Yes, I am sure they do when it comes to war and certainly there are many aspects of business where confidentiality is important.
But in a post on the Union Square Ventures weblog, my partner Brad notes that there is a high correlation between how open an entrepreneur is with the market and how successful they are.
Brad says:
I noticed that, at least anecdotally, there was a correlation between how open entrepreneurs were with us and their ultimate success. Simply put the entrepreneurs who are aggressively open in describing their plans seem to do better than the ones who are cagey. There is absolutely no data underneath this observation. It is just my sense after meeting hundreds of entrepreneurs over 15 years as a VC.
and he goes on to suggest that:
an entrepreneur should be open with everyone, and that they will get the most value out of being open with the people who are most knowledgeable about the particular problem they are trying to solve. The people most knowledgeable about a problem are also the ones best positioned to compete with the entrepreneur, so the entrepreneur has more to gain and more to lose by being open with these people. From one perspective, the risks and rewards of being open are perfectly balanced. Every insight comes at the cost of another potential competitor, but that calculus leaves out the whole problem of execution. If an entrepreneur is incrementally more prepared to execute on an idea that the person they are sharing it with, they should still gain even if they engage in an open (and equal) exchange with a potential competitor.
I think that last point is the clincher. "If an entrepreneur is incrementally more prepared (should it be equipped?) to execute on an idea" then they should be as open as possible. It's an interesting suggestion and worthy of debate. Which is exactly what is going on in the comments to Brad's post on the USV blog.
Samsung's i900 Omnia gets official, hands-on treatment
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/307716765/
Filed under: Cellphones
World's fastest: IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer breaks petaflop barrier using Cell and Opteron processors
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/307852657/
When you're looking to set a record this is how you do it. Not only has IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer come on-line, it's now the world's fastest -- twice as fast as the old BluGene/L champ -- and churning through 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. The $133 million supercomputer achieved the milestone with the help of 12,960 "improved" Cell processors (yes, like those powering your PS3) and a smaller number of AMD Opteron processors -- 116,640 processor cores in total. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your perspective), Roadrunner is for military use only so you'll have to solve the traveling salesman problem on your own time. While not quite into Exaflop territory, we're definitely on the way.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Create Mockup Designs Quickly with Yahoo! Stencils
Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/create-mockup-designs-quickly-with-yahoo-stencils/3483/
Yahoo! Stencil Kit is a set of graphics to help you create mockup designs real quickly – you can use these stencils for designing web pages for the desktop or mobile phones.
And even if you are no web designer, you may use Yahoo! Stencils to create illustrations. For example, you may place screenshots inside the BlackBerry mockup that comes in kit or try different placements of the keyboard on the iPhone screen.
The graphics are available as PDF, Visio, SVG (Illustrator) and PNG (for Photoshop).
Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit - Thanks Lucas Pettinati.
Create Mockup Designs Quickly with Yahoo! Stencils - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS
Improve Your Note-Taking Skills with Listen and Write
Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/improve-your-note-taking-skills-with-listen-and-write/3485/
Listen and Write is an interesting online application where you listen to audio clips on the web and type the spoken words at the same time. The audio clips are syndicated from a news website and are always about current events.
There's a difference between your regular typing software and Listen & Write – here you have to type what you hear not what you see on the screen.
You can create an account to track progress over time. And the application won't let you proceed unless you get the transcription right.
The app may even help improve the transcription skills of journalists who cover press conferences or even bloggers who are into live blogging.
Listen-and-write.com – Do the Dictation Yourself.
Improve Your Note-Taking Skills with Listen and Write - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS
Determine The Shortest Path Between Two Wikipedia Articles
The shortest path between two Wikipedia articles is defined as the minimum number of clicks required to move from one article to another. This can be used to discover connections between topics that are completely unrelated.
For instance, if you are on the Wikipedia page of Microsoft, it would require just two clicks for you to reach the page of Saddam Hussein.
The route will be Microsoft –> 1990 –> Saddam Hussein
Six Degrees of Wikipedia is an online tool that will help you find the shortest route between any two pages on Wikipedia using links.
Unlike real world where distances remain constant if you move from A to B or from B to A, it's not so in the case of Wikipedia. The distance going from Article A to Article B is not necessarily the same as from Article B to article A.
Stephen Dolan made this interesting tool using Wikipedia Dumps that contain all the Wikipedia stories in XML format minus the images and history. Thanks Catherine.
Related: Use Wikipedia More Effectively
Determine The Shortest Path Between Two Wikipedia Articles - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS
Concept Phone Charges Self With The Rays Of The Sun [Cellphones]
Another day, another concept phone. This Eclipse Intuit, by Eddie Goh, features a touch keypad with tactile feedback, 5 megapixel camera with built-in photo editing software, a giant touchscreen and a chemical-based thin solar skin that will charge the battery when exposed to light.
It sounds all well and good, except how often does anyone keep their phone out in the open gathering sunlight? Usually if I'm out and about, my cell stays firmly in the depths of my handbag or in my back pocket and, last time I checked, sunlight doesn't reach there. I guess this phone is going to stay a concept. [Yanko Design]
Artist Repairs Walls In Italy With Lego Bricks [Legos]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/306894372/artist-repairs-walls-in-italy-with-lego-bricks
The work was done as part of an Italian group project "20 Eventi." A group of artists developed projects in the Sabina region to create a open-air museum that spans four villages. [Boing Boing]
GALLERY
END
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