VentureBeat

Yahoo Messenger comes to the iPhone just in time for Push Notification

One of the best things about the iPhone 3.0 software is it will finally make instant messaging viable on the platform. That’s because with Push Notifications finally working, you no longer will have to have an instant messaging app open all the time to receive messages from it.

Of the instant messaging platforms, Yahoo Messenger is one of the largest, with millions of users. So far, it hasn’t been represented at all on the iPhone, while… Continue Reading

After a funding failure, hi5 “kind of died” today

When work began today, social network hi5 had over 100 employees. Right now, that’s closer to 50, a source tells me, confirming TechCrunch’s earlier story. But why did a site with 62 million unique monthly visitors have to lay off 50 percent of its employees today? Because a round of funding it was seeking recently collapsed, I’m told.

The blow is especially painful because the funding was nearing completion, with the investors doing due diligence, says… Continue Reading

Apple splitting the iPhone into high-end and low-end versions?

Rumors have been building over the past few months that Apple was not only working on a new iPhone, but that it could have more than one version of the device in the works. Third-party usage logs and code within the iPhone 3.0 software seem to show this. So why would there be two versions of the device, with more than capacity size as a differentiating factor? Well, it could be part of Apple’s play… Continue Reading

Poor economy killed Wikia Search

Wikipedia has been one of the biggest successes in the history of the Internet. So has Google. So on paper it makes some sense that combining the two would result in a service that would also be hugely popular. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well for Wikia Search.

The wiki-style search engine started by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is closing down, Webware first reported earlier today. In confirming the news, Wales attempts to deflect the… Continue Reading

Disney on Hulu would leave CBS as the odd network out

The premium video streaming site Hulu works first and foremost because it has great content. And it looks to be on the verge of getting even better.

A deal to bring Disney’s content to Hulu is “basically done,” a source familiar with the negotiations tells Silicon Alley Insider. This means we should see content from ESPN, ABC and probably some Disney movies on the service. It’s a huge win for Hulu and its fans.

With ABC on… Continue Reading

See who’s talking about you, not just at you on Twitter

What looks like a small tweak made to Twitter’s user interface today, is actually a fairly big change.

The “Replies” tab has been changed to “@USERNAME.” While you may think they’re the same thing, this tab will now show anytime someone says your name anywhere in a tweet. So, for example, if someone writes “how long until @parislemon posts on the new Twitter feature?” I will see it in my @parislemon tab.

In writing about the change, Twitter… Continue Reading

Could this be Apple’s netbook? Probably not, but let’s hope.

Despite Apple’s insistence that it isn’t ready to enter the market anytime soon, the public (or at least the press) remains obsessed with the possibility of an Mac netbook. This obsession apparently exists in Russia too, where a magazine has published a picture purported to be of a new Apple “MacBook mini” product, which 9to5Mac has obtained.

The image looks like a cross between a MacBook and a MacBook Air. And while such a picture can… Continue Reading

March of the Diggs: Trent Reznor to be on Digg Dialogg

Every so often, the social voting news site Digg holds a “Digg Dialogg,” a chance for Digg community members to submit and vote on questions that will be asked of an interesting and/or powerful person. The latest announced guest is certainly interesting: Trent Reznor, founder of the rock band Nine Inch Nails, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose announced on the company blog today.

Reznor has long been a critic of digital rights management (DRM) as an effective… Continue Reading

Twitter quakes as San Francisco shakes

Earthquake news and Twitter have long gone hand in hand because of Twitter’s instant mass-communication ability. Today, an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area (where Twitter’s headquarters is located, along with many of its original users), and Twitter traffic went nuts.

Below, see what my stream currently looks like in Twitter. Keep in mind, I follow over 800 people, most of whom are not in the Bay Area, and yet every single tweet in my… Continue Reading

After trying it out, I have a good feeling about Hunch

I am an extremely indecisive person. This sometimes frustrates other people, but it frustrates me even more because I absolutely hate wasting time. And being indecisive means I sit there thinking about decisions for far too long. Hunch, a new startup that helps you make decisions, offers a potential solution.

While the idea of a startup that helps you make decisions may sound either boring or completely too complicated to actually work, I’ve been playing with… Continue Reading

Microsoft makes an ad for people who were going to buy a PC anyway

By now, you’ve probably seen Microsoft’s new “Not cool enough to be a Mac person” ad. (If not, I’ve embedded it below.) On the face of it, it looks like a decent ad. It plays on the one thing that will catch people’s attention in a down economy: price. But if you stop to think about it, the ad is kind of pointless, because it’s targeting people who were going to get a PC anyway.

You… Continue Reading

Apple and AT&T hope suckers will clear out iPhone 3G inventory

Allow me for a second to call anyone who doesn’t read sites like this one a sucker.

You see, if you are reading, you know that it’s looking more and more likely every day that a new version of the iPhone will launch in the next few months. Yet, Apple and AT&T make no mention of that when offering “deals” and expanding the options when it comes to buying the current iPhone 3G. They need to… Continue Reading

Apple WWDC: June 8-12. iPhone and Snow Leopard to be featured

Apple has just officially unveiled the dates for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). It will be June 8 – 12 in San Francisco. As expected, the focus looks like it will be on the iPhone OS and Mac OS X Snow Leopard, judging from the website.

These dates are almost spot-on with the days predicted earlier this month by The Baltimore Sun after it looked at the schedule for The Moscone Center, where the conference… Continue Reading

Skype for the iPhone next week?

There are well over 25,000 applications now in Apple’s App Store. But there are still a few notable omissions. One of those is the hugely popular Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application Skype. But that could change as soon as next week, GigaOM’s Om Malik has learned.

Citing a “very reliable” source, Malik says the iPhone app for the service could launch next week at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas. He notes that there… Continue Reading

Get your Lady Gaga downloads in now. iTunes variable pricing starts April 7.

Since its launch, Apple’s iTunes store has had one price for almost all music tracks: $0.99. This uniformity has kept things simple for customers, and no doubt helped the store rise to its current place as the number one music retailer in the United States. But on April 7, the price structure is changing.

We’ve known about this for a while. As part of the deal get the music labels to supply iTunes with digital rights… Continue Reading

Video: AT&T employees relentlessly pat themselves on the back for “fixing” SXSW

On Saturday night at SXSW a couple weeks ago, I was seriously considering seeing how far I could throw my iPhone.

The thing just was not working. And it hadn’t worked since SXSW started on Friday. It wasn’t Apple’s fault; it was AT&T’s. The network — as you may have heard — got absolutely slammed, and failed. I couldn’t make a call, I couldn’t send a text, and using any sort of data over the Internet… Continue Reading

Twitter’s suggested user list: You don’t have to be rich, just famous

Over the past few months there’s been a bit of a stink over Twitter’s “Suggested Users” list. That was probably to be expected because it’s helping people on that list gain massive amounts of followers, while everyone else has to gain them the old-fashioned way: Good old self-promotion.

But there were allegations people on the list were paying Twitter for the privilege — unfounded allegations that were pretty ridiculous. And more recently people started talking about… Continue Reading

The tweet heard ’round the world: Obama’s Twitter account comes alive!

It had been two months and six days since the last tweet from Barack Obama’s Twitter account. The world has changed a bit since then — most notably, Mr. Obama is now officially the President of the United States. That, of course, is the likely reason why he (or one of his staffers) was no longer tweeting. But now, he (or one of his staffers) is back.

A few hours ago, the account sent out a… Continue Reading

Blogs are red, huge web sites are blue . . .

Do you ever notice how a lot of websites you visit frequently look the same? Well, it’s not just their layouts, it’s also their colors. The design site Antrepo4.com has created a list of the biggest blogs, design sites, game sites and overall sites organized by color.

The results show a clear overall trend: Blogs favor red (like VentureBeat), design sites favor gray, game sites favor green and the massive sites, like Google, Facebook and MySpace,… Continue Reading

OS X Snow Leopard about to don a fresh coat of “marble”?

Developer builds of Apple’s next operating system, OS X Snow Leopard, have been going around for months now. In going along with what Apple stated was a goal for the new OS, most of the changes from its current OS X Leopard (not to be confused with Snow Leopard) have been under the hood, to improve performance. But there’s long been speculation that a major change is coming to the OS’s user interface, and Apple… Continue Reading