MySpace has revealed plans to create a mobile version of their online social network. It will be free for users through advertising by Fox Interactive Media and Millennial Media. At first advertising will be limited to Fox but should be opened to others by the end of the year.
“Accessing the Internet from a mobile phone will soon be as common as text messaging and voice calling, and it’s FIM’s goal to deliver these new free, ad-supported experiences as additional options for our users on top of our incredibly popular premium mobile services,” said John Smelzer, Senior Vice President and GM of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media.
As Mr. Smelzer suggests, mobile phones will help people be more connected to their Space by sending and receiving MySpace messages and friend requests; commenting on pictures and profiles; posting bulletins; updating blogs; finding and searching for friends; and viewing or changing mood status.
MyQuire is a new social project management site where you can work on projects by yourself or with a team. The company will make its public debut at the DEMOfall 07 conference starting today, September 24-26 in San Diego, California. I decided to have a look for myself before they unveil it today.
If a user is interested in using the MyQuire platform, they get you started by having you create a profile for yourself. It is less than a daunting task to enter the basics (name, email address, a password and your birth day), so getting through this step and clicking on the verification email seem quite speedy enough.
I find it interesting that your profile is at the center of the MyQuire universe. This “profile” approach is typical for social media sites, but it differs from the approach of other Web 2.0 project management applications like, Basecamp, which focuses on the details needed to start and manage your project.
In terms of understanding the audience, I would say that Basecamp potentially delivers a user experience that more closely matches what a user expected; and certainly does so more quickly. It will be interesting to see if this difference has any impact on their success… especially for people who have use other Web 2.0 project management platforms before.
Hillary Clinton launched a new ad to the Web that faded to black just like the final episode of the Sopranos.
The video drew more than a million viewers to the Clinton campaign Web site and to YouTube, which further illustrates the growing reliance by some of the more technologically savvy campaigns to connect with voters online.
In the new Clinton clip, Hillary Clinton, like Tony Soprano, spins through the musical selections in a diner in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., near her home in Chappaqua, as Bill asked her about the campaign and song winner.
The Soprano touches are subtle but perfectly obvious to any fan of the series. Nicely done.
Last May, it was speculated that Google would buy China’s primary portal, Sina. However, many were unsure if it would be good idea for Google to own a news portal were all the content was “filtered” by the Chinese government.
Yesterday, Google announced a new partnership with Sina Corp as part of its continued efforts to provide value in China. Under a strategic partnership agreement, Google’s search service will be embedded in Sina’s search box, according to the Sina news release.
“This partnership leverages the strong offerings of two Internet powerhouses to provide Internet users in China [with] a better overall experience,” Sina’s chief executive officer Charles Chao said in a statement.
The deal will see Google users gain easier access to Sina’s news content as well as co-operation in advertising and search services.
Google partnerships in China include Soso.com and 163.com. With this deal, Google now has a close relationship with the 2nd, 5th and 6th most popular search and portal destinations in China, with Google.cn sitting down at 7th. Within the next 18 months, China will have a wider population of broadband users that the US and Google’s strategy of building relationships with the top 10 portals is a great way to increase awareness and much desired market share.
Today at the Apple WWDC conference today in San Francisco, Apple announced that they have released a “Public Beta” version of their Safari browser for Windows. Steve Jobs said that Safari already has 5% of the market. You can now download Safari 3 as a free download for Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Microsoft stopped developing the IE browser for the Mac platform about 4 years ago. So, Firefox and Safari have been the only choices for browsers on the Mac platform. Download the demo MOVIE
Powerset is has been carefully flying under the radar screen on how their new (well-funded) “natural language” search engine works. After some initial media attention last fall, the company has been locked up and isn’t saying much.
On Saturday night, while I was watching the “Four Eyed Monsters” video, Powerset showed a screen shot (see below) of a sample search result on their blog. Many of us have been waiting to see how their product works and this sneak peek showed us that Google isn’t able to effectively match the natural language search on Powerset… even with the use of quotes.
The example they used in the sample was “politicians who died in office.” Clearly, doing the same search in Google does not produce results that are as useful as the same search done on Powerset. It will be interesting to see what happens when they launch and whether or not Google will find a way to improve their engine.
MySpace has revealed plans to create a mobile version of their online social network. It will be free for users through advertising by Fox Interactive Media and Millennial Media. At first advertising will be limited to Fox but should be opened to others by the end of the year.
socialmedia
myspace
social networking
web 2.0
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Last May, it was speculated that Google would buy China’s primary portal, 
“This partnership leverages the strong offerings of two Internet powerhouses to provide Internet users in China [with] a better overall experience,” Sina’s chief executive officer Charles Chao said in a statement. 
sina
google
新浪
china
safari
apple
browser
powerset
search engine
natural language search
