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On the Path to 1 Billion Users: Facebook’s Feature Phone Strategy
The Israeli mobile startup Snaptu confirmed on its blog today that it has been acquired by Facebook. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed for Facebook’s first acquisition outside the U.S., but the sum was pegged at$70 million.
Snaptu builds applications for feature phones, and the startup worked with Facebook to develop its feature phone app, released at the beginning of this year. That app expanded Facebook’s mobile app availability beyond just smart phone users, bringing a Facebook app to over 2500 different mobile devices …
Google Docs Turns Its Comments System Into a Conversation System
Starting now, Google is rolling out a new commenting system to all Google Docs users except those Google Apps customers who opt-out through the new system we told you about yesterday. The company expects to have the new feature fully deployed by the end of the day.
Google is attempting to address a common document collaboration problem: how to manage comments and conversations around a document. “Document comments aren’t really conducive to a conversation,” says Google Docs Group Product Manager Scott Johnston. “So we end up having conversations in e-mail instead.” But when you use e-mail, conversations end up separate from the document. And sometimes those conversations are as important as the document itself …
Kids Can Now Build Their Own Xbox Games with Kodu Game Lab
Boosting STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education has become a priority for the government, for schools, and for tech companies. In emphasizing the importance of doing so, many point to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor that note that while there will be more than 2 million job openings in STEM-related fields by 2014, fewer than 15% of U.S. college undergraduates now pursue degrees in science or engineering.
It isn’t enough to convince college students to major in science – or rather, by the time students hit college, it may be too late to pique their interest in the field. So many STEM efforts are aimed at encouraging the scientific and technical minds of younger students.
One way to ignite that interest is to give kids the skills so they can build and play their own video games. That’s the idea behind Microsoft’s Kodu, a visual programming language and game development tool. A product of Microsoft FUSE Labs, Kodu Game Lab enables children as young as five to design, build, and play their own games on the PC and Xbox …
Facebook Working on Real Time Analytics Dashboard
Facebook is working a new dashboard for developers to gain better insights about their Facebook applications, it was revealed during a Tech Talk at the company’s Seattle office this week. The old analytics dashboard often contains data that is no more recent than 48 hours. The new analytics dashboard will be real time. The data will be anonymous – people won’t be able to find out WHO is looking at what, just how popular different items are.
Facebook is building the solution with the MapReduce database HBase. The Tech Talk goes into more technical detail about how the solution was built and scaled.
Watch live streaming video from facebookeducation at livestream.com
Bing Partners with Travel Search Site Kayak
Microsoft has today announced that its Bing search engine has added a new partner, the popular travel search site Kayak. Going forward, Kayak will provide its flight search and pricing data to Microsoft which will be then integrated into Bing’s search results. What that means for Bing users is that they will now have access to flight search data for more cities, more airports and more airlines, in more locations around the world thanks to Kayak, says Microsoft.
This is the second travel-focused update to Bing in less than two weeks, and is notable in light of Google’s attempted acquisition of ITA Software, the system powering travel pricing for dozens of airlines and flight tracking sites. If that deal went through, it would strike a direct blow to Microsoft’s attempt to innovate within the travel search vertical.
On Kayak’s side, this latest Bing partnership may impact the mapping system Kayak uses on its own website, it appears. From the company press release, Kayak says it was “already evaluating” replacing its current mapping system with Bing Maps. That’s now looking a lot more likely …
Twitter Hires Away MySpace Director of Business Development
Companies used to pay millions of dollars to splash advertisements on the front page of MySpace, back when that social network was the hottest one on the web. One of the people in charge of selling those ads was Rita Garg, a Stanford and Harvard educated mathematician and economist.
Today Garg announced, in a Tweet, that she’s left MySpace and is now working on business development at Twitter Inc. Twitter keeps scooping up the leaders from other giant tech companies, ReadWriteWeb reported first last month that Bing chief scientist Alek Kołcz left Microsoft to join Twitter as well. That sounds like as good a use of the company’s coffers filled with venture capital as any …
Google Gets Social: Your Friends Bust Into the Ten Blue Links
Ever since last summer, the Internet has been awash in rumors of a Google social network. First, it was “Google Me” and later it was “Google +1″. Last September, however, Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained that the company wasn’t working on a stand-alone social network, but rather the interweaving of social elements. “”We’re trying to take Google’s core products and add a social component,” said Schmidt.
Today, Google is doing just that. The company is updating its Social Search feature, which it first launched in 2009, and bringing a tighter, deeper integration of social connections to Google Search …
Quora’s New Algorithm for Ranking Answers
The Q&A site Quora has detailed its plans for a PageRank, of sorts, for answers submitted to the site. In a nutshell, “good answers” from those who consistently write “good answers” will rank higher than others’ responses.
Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever hinted at the changes in a post last month, following Quora’s explosive growth over the holidays. “We’re developing an algorithm to determine user quality. The algorithm is somewhat similar to PageRank,” Cheever wrote, noting that ranking people’s responses is a slightly different problem than ranking Web pages.
That ranking “problem” made headlines last weekend when tech evangelist Robert Scoble retracted his initial enthusiastic endorsement of Quora (Is Quora the Biggest Blogging Innovation in 10 Years?, written December 26, 2010), with a post arguing that he’d “been wrong” about Quora’s potential. Scoble protested the up- and downvoting of the site, in no small part because his answers weren’t getting the spotlight he felt they deserved …
Google Starts To Censor Torrent-Related Search Queries
Searching for file-sharing information via Google is going to take a little bit more effort now, thanks to new steps taken by the search engine to remove all sorts of references to torrents from its instant search and autocomplete features.
In December, Google said it was taking steps towards “making copyright work better online.” Among other things, it promised that “terms that are closely associated with piracy” would no longer appear in autocompletes.
Although it may be seen as an effort to crack down on illegal file sharing, the move is a troubling one, particularly for those who provide BitTorrent services. No surprise, these companies are quick to point out that there are many legitimate uses for torrents …
Web Based Church Management Software Offers So Many Services
Forget purchasing a separate software for printing labels, another one for storing contact information, a third program for creating a photo directory and even another one for keeping track of attendance. Congregation Builder’s church management software provides all of these functions and many more.
Web Based Room Reservation Software Provides Three Calendars For One Price
With Congregation Builder’s web based room reservation software, a user can utilize one calendar that does the work of three for only $79.50 a year. The room reservations calendar, the public calendar that embeds in your church website, and an admin calendar to record non public events and activities all work seamlessly together. This prevents double booking of a room and also allows the admin to set up recurring events and consecutive day events. Serving as more than just a calendar that displays events, this web based room reservation software functions as a room reservation and rental software. Once a reservation is entered into the system, online users can click on event names to view a description of the event. In addition, mouse-over pop-ups offer helpful information for the user as they work with the web based room reservation software.
User Friendly Software
All of Congregation Builder’s software is very user friendly. When running the web based room reservation software, a user can print the calendar in beautiful high resolution and choose various printing options like a single page, double facing pages or 14 days to a page. The web based event registration software creates flexible registration forms that allow a user to define the questions they want to appear on each form.
Camp Management Software Keeps Track of Campers
Along with Congregation Builder’s other programs, their camp software helps directors organize reservations, payments, room reservations and more. Going beyond a database, the camp management software prevents double booking of rooms. Also, the camp software allows attendees to pay directly online through PayPal or to send in a check.