Roundup: The Associated Press tries to take down blog excerpts, Google’s escape clause revealed and more
Here’s the latest action:
The Associated Press to blogs: Don’t quote us — The Associated Press has demanded that The Drudge Retort (not to be confused with much more famous Drudge Report) take down several blog posts containing excerpts of AP stories. The objections sound pretty silly — the longest excerpt was 79 words long, and quoting and linking other articles is a popular blogging practice. AP Strategy Director Jim Kennedy’s response that the excerpts were “more… Continue Reading
Web communication startup Orgoo gets a facelift (we have invites)
Orgoo, a Los Angeles startup that’s trying to become the hub of all your online and mobile communciation, is gearing up for a public launch scheduled for late June. As it opens up to more users (more on that in a second), Orgoo has redesigned its interface and unveiled some other new features.
We first wrote about Orgoo almost exactly a year ago, and the redesign (see screenshot below) is a big improvement over what we… Continue Reading
Orgoo gives you an audience for your video chats
Online communication start-up Orgoo is launching a new video chat service that merges the intimacy and conversational style of normal chats with the larger audience of video “lifecasting”.
Orgoo co-founder Sean Rad argues that there’s room for an application that falls between the video chat model exemplified by Skype and the new trend of video lifecasting, which Yahoo entered last month with Yahoo Live. (You can read our recent roundup of lifecasting start-ups here.) In the… Continue Reading
Four startups ready to change the face of email
In ten years, an internet eternity, web-based email has only made token improvements, moving from Hotmail to Gmail. Meanwhile, instant messaging and social networks have rapidly developed.
Four new startups, all of which came out of secrecy this year, point toward a bright new future for email. These oddly-named saviors — Fuser, Orgoo, Xobni and Xoopit — have a simple goal. They want to centralize communication, and they want to give it structure and meaning.
Power users… Continue Reading
Yahoo Mail lets you IM, but still closed — waiting for Orgoo
Yahoo Mail upcoming redesign is offering text messaging from within email to external mobile phones.
It is introducing shortcuts, underlining addresses, places, dates, contact information and other data with blue dotted lines. Click on these link you’ll be taken to maps for the addresses, calendar for dates, and so on — with more to come. Most notable, however, is its text messaging (SMS) service: You can now send them a text message from your email, in… Continue Reading
Meebo launches Meebo Rooms, to stay ahead
Earlier today, we wrote about the IM players, and noted that start-ups such as Meebo and eBuddy will have to work hard to to keep from getting swallowed by the big guys.
Coincidentally, Meebo had been working quietly on a project that launches tomorrow: Meebo Rooms. They are web-based IM chat rooms where people can gather and discuss a video or other media file that plays from a central media player. The company showed us the… Continue Reading
Orgoo throws IM, text, voice and email into one platform
Orgoo, a Los Angeles based start-up, is about to release a futuristic Web-based message tool that brings together all your IM, voice, text and email into one place.
It is still in early testing mode, but we got an early look at the product.
The cool thing about Orgoo is that it lets you switch seamlessly between formats — IM, voice, text and email. You can do things like send an IM as an SMS message, for… Continue Reading