News comes from Amsterdam today regarding Dutch GPS system company TomTom, as they team up with Google to provide greater utility in TomTom’s portable GPS devices. TomTom’s navigation devices are probably familiar to you; if you don’t have one in your car, you’ve probably been subjected to one of their advertisements.

For once, the press release copy isn’t exaggerating. The cooperation between Google and TomTom is actually a major step for TomTom, and GPS navigation as a whole. Live business data and points of interest from the Google business listings as well as certain crowd-sourced Google Maps data for points of interest will be available via Internet capable TomTom devices.

For now, it looks like the devices will function in a sync-up capacity, if I’m reading properly between the lines on the marketing verbiage. You then take the device mobile, and are able to either pre-plan driving routes based on points of interests or businesses, or have relevant sites pop up as you drive past.

As these systems progress, wouldn’t it be great if it had the always on capability, and you could load a Google Earth filter and see new points of interest pop up as they were created? We probably won’t see such functionality this time around, but I imagine it isn’t too many generations down the line.

[via Reuters]

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

As noted this morning, Mark Zuckerberg has apologized for the Beacon blunder. Facebook has also added an option to completely opt-out of the advertising program, which has been surrounded in controversy since launching merely a month ago. You can read his whole note Facebook’s blog, but here are the nuts and bolts:

“… At first we tried to make [Beacon] very lightweight so people wouldn’t have to touch it for it to work. The problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends. It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share. Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I’m not proud of the way we’ve handled this situation and I know we can do better.”

As you can see, it’s a fairly delicate choice of words from Facebook’s CEO, but for now, it looks like we can finally put Beacon behind us. Or can we? Today’s poll:

Zuckerberg’s apology and associated updates to Facebook are:
• Too Little, Too Late; Facebook’s Screwed!
• Good Enough for Me; Let’s Move On
• Nobody Cared Except Us Web Heads Anyway!
View Results

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

The buzzillionth acquisition announcement in the past three days (I know what you’re thinking): Revolution Health has acquired HealthTalk for an undisclosed amount. HealthTalk specializes in providing online resources for health-related topics. It offers a network of blogs, community submissions, podcasts and editorials for the purpose of giving you information that you’re looking for.

With a good-sized user base and monthly activity, HealthTalk’s management team comprises of a handful of executives that previously worked on OnHealth Network, which was acquired by WebMD in 2000, as Seattle PI reports. Revolution Health, which launched earlier this year as the brainchild of AOL co-founder Steve Case, has been moving rather swiftly in an effort to take on its competitors, like WebMD.

The online health sector has also seen a good amount of growth this year, with niche search engines like Kosmix cropping up for an aggregated set of online health resources. Larger networks like AOL have been improving their health portals as well. Google is gearing up to offer a bit of direct competition to Revolution Health with its upcoming digital answer to storing health records.

To put the icing on the cake of today’s announcement, Revolution Health has also made a strategic investment in SparkPeople, another health website based in Cincinnati. With an earlier acquisition of CarePages, Revolution Health is making some swift moves, indeed.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

Having already worked with Maven on the Internet TV platform’s recently launched advertising network, Scripps will now be looking to Maven to power its Internet TV offering for its catalog of shows from HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Recipezaar, Fine Living and Great American Country. Why not take advantage of the efforts it has already made with Maven for advertising purposes?

With Scripps having spun off part of its media empire to concentrate on its web efforts, it’s clear that the company is looking to monetize its television content on the web. What I find particularly interesting about Scripps’ host of lifestyle brands is its potential for interactive syndication over the web.

A majority of Scripps’ programming can be integrated into online communities with a strong, niche user base that can take advantage of the feedback opportunities that a focus on lifestyle brands affords them. Having acquired Pickle and launched Rate My Room, it’s clear that Scripps would like to further grow its web presence, and extended syndication options through Maven will work for Scripps’ distribution needs across its varied online properties.

And with more major networks and content providers signing up with Maven, it appears to be stealing some market share away from Brightcove. With clients such as FOX, Maven has offered distribution and a video at network that Scripps is clearly taking advantage of on both ends of the spectrum.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

SecureWorks has done an excellent job attempting to get to the bottom of the Ron Paul deluge of spam we all recieved in the end of October, just before Rep. Paul’s ground-breaking day of fundraising November 5th.

In an effort to discern the spam deluge’s “fingerprint,” SecureWorks worked in tandem with other researchers, analyzing the aspects of different elements in the header files from samples in different parts of the Internet. They were able to determine, based on a number of technical details in the header that that they matched exactly a usual spam botnet that typically pitches phrameceuticals and fake watches.

Here’s the real question, though: was the spam organization that sent out the Ron Paul fundraising letter hired or run by the Ron Paul campaign? The answer is “almost certainly not.” Was the spam software operated by a Ron Paul supporter? Quite possibly. Screenshots that SecureWorks dug up of the web interface for the spam sending software showed that the Ron Paul job sat at the top of the queue.

Of course, with no attached personal blog or signed confession, its difficult to determine whether or not it was simply an innocuous test message to feel out the capability of the system, or a legitimate attempt to raise money or profile for Ron Paul.

The Ron Paul contingency, or Ron Quaeda, as my podcast cohost likes to call them, is really not a top-down organization. Much of the campaigning and fundraising efforts are democratized and crowdsourced. Indeed, they attempted to recruit me into the Ron Paul for President organization several months before there was actually a declared candidate in the race, much less a declared Ron Paul. By the time Ron Paul got his candidacy organization off the ground, there were already several news groups and mailing lists numbering in the hundreds of thousands with declared supporters of the candidate.

As such, it makes it a bit difficult for me to imagine that Ron Paul’s organization would sanction this behavior, although by the same token, it isn’t difficult to believe that within that large and somewhat kooky group of folks that fall under the umbrella of the name “Ron Paul Supporters” there might be someone who knows how to use spam software.

For all we know about exactly how it happened, now, we may never find out exactly the answer to who or why.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

When was the last time the U.S. Postal Service upped the price of stamps? Like, last month? We all know that USPS is in a bit of a dire situation, and I know from personal experience that it likes doing big business any chance it gets. That’s more money for USPS and a chance to steal market share from UPS, FedEx and DHL. But in the case of Netflix and those darn flimsy envelopes, the DVD rental company has cost the USPS a reported $41.9 million in the past two years.

To make matters worse, USPS is forecasting costs of $61.5 million over the next two years to process Netflix DVD mailers. They jam up machines and require a lot of manual processing. How time consuming and laborious!

So USPS has extended two options for Netflix–change the envelopes so that they can be machine-processed, or pay the standard 17-cent surcharge for non-machinable packages. I’m guessing that when Netflix first spoke with USPS about its master plan for mailing out DVDs, USPS didn’t think those envelopes would be much of a problem. Two years later, and the Post Office wants more money.

What does that mean for Netflix? Higher subscription rates to compensate for the improved mailers–or a bigger push for download rentals? With Blockbuster having found a way to fight Netflix with a triple threat of options for consumers (it’s also important to note that Tech Trader reports Blockbuster’s mailing packages cause no qualms for USPS), Netflix probably can’t afford to raise subscription prices, and I don’t think a bigger push for web downloads would compensate for the changes that need to be made. Perhaps Netflix will have to take a bit of a loss in order to get new mailers.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

A few hours after getting AIM integrated with my Gmail chat, I posted to Twitter: “hmm this is pretty cool, I may never open Trillian again.” I spend all day inside of Gmail as is – bringing my buddy list inside of it makes sense, and makes my system run marginally faster since I don’t need to keep an additional desktop application open. Additionally, assuming my buddies don’t go “off the record,” it makes all of my IMs searchable.

Thinking about where Gmail might be headed down the road, one big idea stuck out in my head: VoIP calls, from which you can search the audio content. A few weeks ago, a rumor surfaced that Google might be interested in buying Skype, which would provide most of the functionality I’m thinking about thanks to all of the third-party applications that have been built for the leading p2p VoIP service. However, I’ve got two better (and cheaper!) ideas: buy Jangl and Pluggd.

Imagine being able to instantly make a VoIP call directly to anyone on your buddy list, anywhere in the world, from inside the software program where you already maintain your entire address book. Then, imagine being able to search the audio of these conversations, in addition to the existing ability to search all of your emails, IMs, and SMS messages (another feature of Jangl). This would all be possible if Google made these two deals, and of course, tightly integrated them with Gmail.

Backing up a minute, here is what Jangl does: enter in the email address of the person you want to call and get connected over VoIP. You can also tweak Jangl to give each person in your address book their own Jangl number, which keeps phone numbers anonymous, but lets you make free-to-low cost VoIP calls. Jangl also recently added free text messaging so you can get SMS messages on your computer, and hooked up with competitor Jajah in a partnership designed to improve the company’s network and accelerate product development.

Now, let’s assume you can make calls from within the Gmail interface. That’s where Pluggd comes in. Currently, Pluggd offers some pretty slick tools for searching audio, but it’s primarily focused on media content, such as the audio search player they launched for CNET. However, it’s not a big leap to apply that same technology to recorded VoIP conversations, which could also be a more lucrative advertising model. Imagine searching for a conversation you had with a colleague about which CRM software vendor you were going to select. As part of Gmail, such a search would produce high paying ads for Salesforce, SAP, etc.

In addition to these completely 100% speculative deals, there are also the one’s that Google has already done that might make some sense integrated into Gmail. There’s GrandCentral, which rings all of your phones simultaneously – that would be a great feature to have connected to your buddy list. Then, there are Jaiku and Zingku, which could bring geo-presence data and microblogging into the mix.

Google could of course build any of these features themselves, but Jangl (and competitor/partner Jajah) and Pluggd have both done a great job with their respective pieces of the puzzle. Given how simple yet powerful the AIM integration is within Gmail, I imagine Jangl and Pluggd could be added without adding any unnecessary clutter to Google’s squeaky clean interface.

Pretty killer, in this blogger’s humble opinion.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

Google has officially released its new iPhone application, which you’ll be directed to if you point your iPhone web browser to http://www.google.com. The new application is very much the portal-style landing page you’d expect from Google. Still very simplistic in appearance, it merely offers tabs for quick access to most of its other applications–Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Docs, Reader, Picasa and more.

The purpose of the new iPhone application is to grant easier access to all of Google’s services. As long as mobile browsing has been around, it has been important for carriers and search engines to go the portal route. That trend started out for practicality reasons, as mobile web browsing was very rudimentary, and it’s evolved only in the manner in which carriers and search engines can fit more into the screen for navigational purposes.

On the one hand, the very nature of mobile web browsing does not fully mimic PC web browsing, so the infamous portal serves its purpose for sensible navigation. On the other hand, Google’s getting us all plumped and prepped for the easy access to its applications that will be coming around soon enough, thanks to Android. Through this iPhone app, some AT&T customers may still get a tiny taste of Google’s influence, but now that Verizon has signed on for Android support, the mobile game (in terms of browsing/navigation and applications ) may be about to change yet again.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

CrossLoop’s screen-sharing service has received $3 million in funding, and has made some major changes to its product. The biggest change is a pretty important improvement for CrossLoop–you can now create accounts. While the service was always free to download and use, there was previously no way to track your sessions, or login to a profile. That’s all changed with CrossLoop’s latest updates, and it appears to be geared specifically for those that utilize screen-sharing functionality for business purposes.

For example, a business that specializes in offering tech support will want its employees to be able to track each session, for a number of reasons: billing time, feedback, employee stats, etc. And CrossLoop takes most of this into consideration. That tech support employee can upload a picture, and promote himself on a public profile page where customers can see his areas of expertise and the number of sessions he’s had. Additionally, this information can be viewed in a badge that you can place on your website or blog.

After a session, both parties are able to leave feedback, which is applied to that employees stats and ratings. However, only a customer that is logged in will have their stats applied to the tech support employee. As the employee, you could encourage your customer to create a free account, but it may not hold as much value to that customer if they use it only one time. Hopefully CrossLoop will be able to find some way to extract feedback to be applied to ratings without having a customer need to create an account, especially for those business-oriented clients that CrossLoop is now going after. See here for more tools similar to CrossLoop.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here

I’m often reminded of the fact that I don’t think about the Web in the same way most of my friends do. While we in the blog world have been droning on endlessly about every twist and turn in the Facebook Beacon saga, I had a hunch that most “regular” users of the site aren’t even aware of the new advertising program. Low and behold, a “sponsored poll” that Valleywag uncovered yesterday:

According to the poll, which ran in the tech-heavy San Francisco network, 67 percent of users haven’t even heard of Facebook Beacon. What does this mean? Most people still login primarily to check messages, pokes, and wall posts, and then get on with their day, the majority of which isn’t spent reading RSS feeds. By the time Facebook makes changes based on the beating they are taking from bloggers, most users probably won’t have ever even noticed there was a Beacon-related privacy problem to begin with.

Meanwhile, what do the numbers say? According to some new data from Compete.com this morning, Facebook traffic was up 20 percent month-over-month:

Listen, Facebook needs to make changes to Beacon. Users, both techie and not, don’t get it and don’t like it. But it’s hardly something that keeps the vast majority of users awake at night, and not something that’s going to send Facebook into a tailspin if they don’t change it within the next 24 hours.

Update (8:35am PST): Alas, as I go back to check my RSS feeds after making this post, Mark Z has apologized for Beacon and announced a new feature to turn off Beacon completely. Facebook is certainly not dying anytime soon.

Share This

Can't see the video? Click here