Windows 7 sells 234% more copies than Vista
It looks like all the positive buzz round Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system paid off in sales. Windows 7 sold 234 percent more copies during its first few days on the market than Vista did during the same period of its release, according to… Continue Reading
Brizzly steps up to be the next client supporting Twitter lists
Brizzly, the status update client from the makers of Google Reader, has stepped up to become the second big app to support Twitter lists. (Seesmic was the first earlier this week.)
Lists are what they sound like — groups of Twitter accounts that people can recommend… Continue Reading
Max Levchin on Slide’s big virtual goods bet, scams and — mating
Slide, which started in photo-sharing, moved into Facebook widgets and then raised funding at a reported $550 million valuation last year, shifted gears this year and went aggressively into virtual goods. The company’s looking to become a mainstream version of Second Life, where there’s a… Continue Reading
Twitter cleans up trending topics to make search results more relevant
Twitter is cleaning up trending topics by returning more relevant results when you look up popular keywords people are tweeting about.
One of the neatest little features that grew out of the Twitter phenomenon last year were these trending topics. The company adopted them after acquiring… Continue Reading
New retweet feature on Twitter begins limited roll-out
Retweets, a way of sharing content on Twitter, are coming into their own.
Twitter’s testing a new official retweet feature after announcing they were going to incorporate the informal practice earlier this year.
As you can see in mock-ups above, there will be a link to retweet… Continue Reading
Google Dashboard: All Your Data That Are Belong To Us
OK, so all that personal data doesn’t really belong to Google, but it would be nice to know how much the search giant has on us — embarrassing e-mails, search histories and all.
The company released a dashboard today that shows all the data it has from… Continue Reading
Spore Islands launches on Facebook as EA tries social games expansion
Rumors persist that Electronic Arts plans to buy social gaming startup PlayFish to break into the fast-growing market of Facebook games.
In the meantime, EA continues to expand into social games on its own. Today, it launched Spore Islands, a spin-off from the create-a-creature Spore game… Continue Reading
ReVolt makes long-lasting zinc air batteries rechargeable
ReVolt, a Swiss spinoff from a Norwegian research firm, promises to triple the driving range of electric cars while lowering costs and increasing battery reliability and safety.
These claims would be remarkable for any battery. What makes the company even more unique is that ReVolt is… Continue Reading
A reinvented Carly Fiorina declares her candidacy for U.S. Senate
Carly Fiorina is reinventing herself as a politician today as she is expected to announce that she is running for the U.S. Senate seat in California that has been held for years by Democrat Barbara Boxer.
I say that she’s reinventing herself because she has played… Continue Reading
Blogger gives Google Friend Connect a 9-million site lead on Facebook
Google released some interesting statistics today about Friend Connect, which is part of the search giant’s push to build a social layer across the web where visitors can get tailored experiences depending on their interests and friend network. So how has Friend Connect done since… Continue Reading
Google Friend Connect sites start offering tailored web content, ads
More than a year ago Google and Facebook started a head-to-head race to build a social layer across the web with Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect. The vision was, if you visited a web site, you’d get a custom experience based on your own… Continue Reading
Share button madness: Real-time search startup Topsy launches one of its own
Real-time search startup Topsy launched its own variation on the retweet button today to compete with Tweetmeme’s leading version.
It’s important because the retweet button was one of the distinguishing features that allowed Tweetmeme to break out from the pack of real-time search startups that launched… Continue Reading
Omidyar Network puts $2.4 million into government transparency abroad
Omidyar Network, the philanthropic fund created by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, just invested $2.4 million in Global Integrity, a non-profit firm that researches corruption and transparency in developing countries.
Global Integrity has academics, journalists and local contacts on the ground in about 100 countries feeding information… Continue Reading
¡Fue muy rápido! Twitter is now in Spanish
That was fast. About a month after Twitter launched a crowdsourced translations program to tap its burgeoning user base for help, the site’s now available in Spanish, according to co-founder Biz Stone.
The microblogging network has some prominent Twitter users including the Spanish government, basketball player… Continue Reading
Loopt aims for that mobile, social and real-time sweet spot with Pulse
Mobile social network Loopt is getting into the real-time game with Pulse, which will bring recommendations for things to do to depending on where you are and what’s popular at the moment.
It pulls in data from content partners like Zagat, Daily Candy and Thrillist along… Continue Reading
Show off those Twitter curation skills with the Lists widget
In a very natural extension of the Lists feature Twitter finally rolled out last week, the company added a widget which lets you embed tweets from an entire list.
Why might this be useful? If you’re a business owner, you might want to show off public… Continue Reading
Vidly’s mobile video app finally gets go-ahead from Apple — two months later
Talk about a long wait.
It took Vidly two months and 17 days (or 6,739,238 seconds by their count) to make it into Apple’s app store.
The San Francisco-based startup, which used to be called TwitVid.io and is backed by angel investors including Ron Conway, released its… Continue Reading
Why virtual economies defy the rules of your old college textbooks
Scarcity — it’s the first concept drilled into any beginning economics major. And economics is about the production, distribution and consumption of scarce resources.
But in virtual economies, one could give a farmer unlimited grain and cows. So given that very key difference, if you’re the creator… Continue Reading
Photo of the day: Google’s Android dressed in its Halloween finest (and more)
Standing in its rightful place between a donut and a cupcake on Google’s campus in Mountain View, Google’s Android, dressed as a pirate for Halloween, salutes passersby. I have no idea why it’s holding a shopping bag, but it does have a peg leg!
Google’s not… Continue Reading
Facebook wins $711 million in damages against “Spam King” Wallace
A federal district court in Northern California awarded Facebook $711 million in damages against Sanford Wallace, an online marketer who accessed users’ accounts without their permission, sent phony messages and wrote wall posts. These were used to trick people into visiting outside phishing and commercial… Continue Reading