People, Google isn’t copying from others. Get it?

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Monik

Few days back, Google flaunted it’s new design to it’s 286 Million daily users. Guess what most of them said? It’s a copy of Bing, or some even said it’s a copy of Yahoo!’s search engine. Bull S***.

Whenever some new product is released, critics compare it to other stuff on the market and just tag them as a copy of this and that. This seriously pisses me off. Remember Apple Vs. Microsoft ten years back? Apple charged Microsoft of copying it’s Graphic user interface and the mouse and there was something that Bill Gates quoted over it, that if a car has a steering wheel no company claims it as it’s invention.

This is what it is all about. Moving forward. No use comparing, because we know as long it’s competition companies are going to strive even harder for innovation. You just pick up whats good in front of you and move ahead. This is a whole process or learning, improving, and getting better. I don’t get it, why do people just say it’s COPIED? Steve-o-phoebia?

Why crop screenshots, when you can directly embed tweets into your webpage?

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Jasbir

The micro blogging service Twitter has rolled out a new tool that will let users to embed tweets into their blogs or websites. Black Bird Pie , is a tool provided by twitter that asks the users, the link of a tweet and and upon hitting the ”Bake It” button you will be provided with a full fledge ready to embed tweet and the code you need to fit it in your webpage.

Why would you prefer Embedding Tweets than actually taking a screenshot and posting? First of all, the biggest advantage is that whenever you embed a tweet, the tool recognizes your webpage styling like font family and tags from CSS and appy the same formatting on the tweets. Next all, It also copies over whatever background a person uses on Twitter. So in that regard, it is just like taking a screen grab. Well, its simply just like pasting a crop-shot of the actual page with all working links, images, etc!

Here is a screenshot of the tool :

Apple iPhone #1 Opera Mini Device in US

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Monik

We’ve been continuously shocked ever since Opera Mini for iPhone was accepted by Apple in it’s very own exclusive closed App Store. Here’s some piece of news to do the magic again.

Apple’s huge user base made it the Number 1 device on the hot list of Mobile phones running Opera Mini. Entering the iPhone arena was a very crucial decision indeed and the efforts payed off! And btw, Apple defeated Blackberry which was No.1 before

[Via BoyGeniusReport]

We aren’t happy with Lala’s death. Neither is Apple

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Monik

The message put up on Lala.com, popular music “locker” service, sparked lot of rumors. It sinks down when this month ends, and Apple which acquired it sometime back has no plans, or maybe it does?

Why is Apple shutting it down? Rumors were floating that Apple was soon to reveal, iTunes.com which would take Lala’s place. Sadly thats not happening, atleast not now though Apple is looking forward to it.

For those who don’t know this already, Lala.com allowed users to make shareable playlists which they could stream over multiple devices and the content could be anything they uploaded or purchased. Apple was looking to launch a web based version (cloud) for iTunes soon and Lala could possibly play a lead role in what Apple has to offer.

The Cupertino based company was in talks with Music Labels but it seems most labels did not find this a profitable venture because, if we go by the business model it allows streaming of music via multiple methods and thereby giving a multiple plays for the same single price. Either prices will have to shoot up to make the labels happy or else Apple has to revise it’s model.

No matter how bright the future might be, it surely isn’t happening soon, atleast not in June (Apple’s WWDC).

H.264 beats Flash : Bad news for Adobe

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Monik

Steve Jobs spinned the hottest debates of this year few days back, inclusion of Flash in Apple products. Steve justified his companies decision of excluding Flash from their gear with technical reasoning.

Steve Jobs’s essay, “Thoughts on flash” , where the discussion started, spoke about Flash being used for rendering video. He prominently pointed out that if Flash provided for 75% of video on web, it was more or less present in the modern H.264 format which is supported by Apple’s lineup of iPhones, iPods and iPads.

For those who thought Steve’s reasoning was counterfactual (including Adobe), here are some facts which they would like to digest.

Hell now, H.264 now makes 66% of the web video while Flash is just wavering with some 26%. This means, one strong fact over which Adobe argued has been washed away! All the stats were provided by encoding.com which has encoded over five million videos for high scale clients like MTV. Well, if you know YouTube also provides all it’s video in H.264 format which means a huge part of the web video is already available in the new formats. [Thanks Techcrunch]

I feel that Adobe cannot publicly go on criticizing Apple for it’s decision, after all it’s their devices and their wish. It’s wrong on Adobe’s part too and as far as what it looks to me, i think Apple has got it right though losing up a bit to allow specific flash components to work could be a win-win for customers and developers both.

Facebook’s Mission to take Over the Web : Battle Begins

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Monik

It’s been roughly three years or so since the word, Social Networking / Social Media / or whatever the newspaper journalists call it, has come into existence. Market penetration is sky-high, social networks are cashing millions of dollars and advertising culture has been altered. This has made a huge impact on how corporate brands plan their advertising budgets. What are they all looking for?

Users. People. You.

It’s quite obvious, every bit of code written on Facebook is written with the intention of making a difference as to how you play yourself online or network or share stuff. Everything is targeted towards you. This means you are their biggest priority and you make them work. Simple isn’t it? Nah, not that it’s rocket science but lot of corporate boardroom stuff goes into setting a whole thing like this to work and keep more than 400 Million people connected. Let’s get to the point. What will all this result in? Web going social. A hell lot more. Facebook’s got plan to take over the whole web. If you thought Facebook’s got a brawl with Twitter, think again. It’s no more Facebook Vs. Twitter, it’s Facebook Vs. Google. Here are Facebook’s plan why they will make you reconsider your thought.

Facebook Connect : Facebook everywhere!

Facebook.com isn’t just exploding over but it’s getting everywhere. Like a injection, the rest of the web is getting successive doses. About 80,000 websites use Facebook connect to import users from facebook to their service which include services like Digg and soon, Yahoo! too. This means facebook is in charge of users not only on it’s own platform but everywhere else too. Google also has something like Facebook connect but it sucks compared to the popular facebook buddy.

Hang in there Baby!

If you thought Facebook Connect was the biggest invasion into the the huge web itself then here’s some time to alter your thoughts again. Facebook has got another master plan. It’s planning to take over that little strip of real estate in your browser bottom most with a toolbar. That means Facebook everywhere, yes, everywhere!

Like This, Share That.

The “share” and “like” buttons you might be familiar with, will now be available all over the web. Yes, all across the web just like and share any webpage, link, object you like! Facebook now wants to control everything you read and share with your friends.

Geolocation Tagging

With what people do, where they do it is also important as social networks are increasingly growing location aware, especially with the entrance of augmented reality applications. Recently, Twitter added location tagging tweets too and then, there is foursquare, a whole network setup for the location purpose. Facebook will then not only control what you do and share, but also where you do it and how. Now this sounds fun!

The invasion has begun!

Note : As you see above, the invasion has already begun and facebook has started taking the first steps!

Surprisingly Opera Mini now on the App Store

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Monik

We had rumors of Opera Mini landing up on the App Store and then confirmations too. The biggest question was, will Apple ever approve a app which would give direct competition to the default web browser that comes loaded with the device, Safari?

The terms and conditions also favored the chances of the Opera app being dropped from the app store but surprisingly, it’s there to make web browsing faster six times compared to the primeval browsing app on the iPhone.

The Data Compression technologies compress data by upto 90% and this speeds up the time taken to render each page.

“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini App,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “This app is another step toward Opera’s goal of bringing the Web to more people in more places.”

For Opera it’s celebration time as they get to serve a huge audience which were eagerly awaiting a product to rejuvenate their current browser but the only confounding thing over here is that, do Apple’s term only apply to competitive brands only and not others? Reason for making the statement is lucid, Apple states in it’s policies that Apps which duplicate any existing iPhone function will not be approved but what you see here is contrasting.

Mobile Advertising to be reincarnated with Apple’s iAd?

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Monik

If the next big thing is, it’s got to be Mobile Advertising. If analysis’s seem correct then it’s lucid that the Cell Phone markets, especially the smartphone markets in terms of browsing and downloading content have grown 10 folds in the past 3 years.

Apple too has contributed to the growth of the market immensely with the so called “revolutionary product”, the iPhone. Along with the iPhone came the App Store which has also played crucial role in promoting Application sales and the growth of the market and it now holds more than 150,000 apps. This created opportunities for advertisers to boast their products but till now there wasn’t a proposed model for it, all ideas sprinkled and few organizations using them.

Google acquired AdMob for a price of 750 Million Dollars to get into the Mobile advertising arena starting with a already powerful contender in the game. Followed by that we had the news hitting blogs, Apple had acquired Quattro Wireless for 300 Million Dollars which was also a tough challenger in the advertising market. Smells like growing fight, Google and Apple?

Steve Jobs brazenly once during a townhall meet with his companies employees, that they [Google] got into our [Apple] business of cell phones, we [Apple] did not get into their [Google] search business. Steve pointed out Google’s business strategies more or less could make Apple bankrupt if Google continued. What Now? Now it’s Apple’s turn and this time they decide to join in the advertising bandwagon and challenge the biggest contenders in the business, Google.

MediaPost wrote that Apple could be possible launching a new type of a Mobile Advertising Platform called “iAd” (signifies the i used in almost all major Apple products) and that this platform has been purely built upon the acquired platform, Quattro. The announcement of this platform will be coming up on 7th April, some four days after iPad starts shipping. Apple’s lined up all explosives, ha?

The platform will be unveiled at Madison Avenue (somewhat the heart of advertising industry), and invasion of Apple there, surely means direct shot at Google. Apart from Mobile Advertising, i think Apple would be more interested in portable advertising which means, iPad is also included. Most companies fail to have their ideas spread and that is where they lose, but in this case Apple has already got a fair amount of means to propagate its platform with couple of millions of iPhone being used and iPod Touches, 150,000 and more apps and the iPad coming which already crossed 200,000 pre orders by now. These figures mean that Apple has got a hell lot of users there and reaching them won’t be difficult for them.

Almost all the top companies of the valley would be finding ways to get into the app store somehow or the other to advertise. Apple might be the one opening floodgates to them and prove to be another huge success.

Viacom-Youtube’s $1 Billion legal mumbo jumbo

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Monik

One of the biggest media conglomerate, Viacom’s battle with the largest video sharing website, Youtube for a $1 Billion Lawsuit went public this thursday at the Federal Court.

The whole case revolves around the arguments made by both the Giants and most exigent part constituent of the case is the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998).

The DMCA policy gives refuge to the Content and Service Providers from the Copyright acts as long as the Providers are unaware of fact that infringing content is being uploaded and stored and that the Provider’s revenues are not being accelerated because of such activities.

Viacom states that Youtube is defying the DMCA Policy, simply because Youtube’s founders and it’s parent conglomerate’s conduct is not in accordance with the conditions required for DMCA to provide shelter to a service provider. On the other hand, we have Google with a 100 page court file stating that Viacom’s arguments are counterfactual and that it completely agrees with the DMCA policy.

What Viacom Says

The Media giant states that Youtube is not in consonance with DMCA policy as it’s founders were aware of such infringements taking place (Strike 1), Google was also aware of this certainty before acquiring the young startup for a massive amount of $1.65 Billion (Strike 2) and conclusively when they questioned Youtube and Google employees, no one seems to remember anything of such being talked about in the company (Strike 3).

What Google Says

Only service remaining to be released by Google is surely Google Law, to fight all the lawsuits pending against the Big “G”. Currently Google is facing lawsuits all over the globe for Privacy Breaches for two of the biggest service, Google Maps and Google Buzz. This time it could turn nasty with Viacom. Google argues by saying that video shows were itself uploaded by third party companies on behalf of Viacom and then it is treating with the Video Sharing website with DMCA takedown requests.

The matter is not as lucid as it appears to us. Firstly, both the companies have arguments which overlap and thus making the matter even more difficult for the judge to provide a judgement in favor of any of the parties. Viacom takes a direct shot stating that Youtube Founders, specifically Jawed Karim had the knowledge about the infringing content being uploaded during the early days of YouTube during the dawn of the startup in 2005 and Viacom provides a part of the mail conversation between Jawed and the co-founder Steve Chen.

‘Jawed, please stop putting stolen videos on the site. We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.’ ~ Steve Chen

Viacom accuses that the founders were even sure that 80% of their web traffic in the earlier days was dependent on the pirated videos and so they also used it as a method to increase financial gains via Advertising, which actually did not happen though.

Google argues that clearly pointing out that Viacom itself was involved in uploading the infringing videos and that it had hired marketing companies to do that task on their behalf because YouTube was an effective appliance for Promotion of Viacom’s shows. Google in it’s court file also includes that there is now way for the website to find if the content uploaded was authorized or not.

This case could also decide the future of video sharing, and finally prove who is responsible for taking care of the Copyrights, the Service providers or the Content creators?

Image Credit

Etiole

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Category Archives: internet