nptech.info

pimg src="http://img.skitch.com/20100325-ngaycx5ie8u85eyf6kfk9wpysa.jpg" width="150"/The Internet was a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/revolt_angry_digg_users_want_their_baby_back.php"in flames last week/a as popular social news curation site a href="http://digg.com/"Digg.com/a launched the a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_4_goes_live-ish_to_the_public.php"latest iteration of its platform/a, unleashing a groundswell of outrage and protest from a majority of the site's loyal users. A week later, Digg has begun to respond to its passionate community, making rapid changes and bug fixes as its exhausted back-end infrastructure struggles to keep up. Today I spoke with Digg's VP of Product Keval Desai about the launch, the company's reaction to the negativity from its community and how it intends to move forward into the future./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21612amp;cb=21612' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21612amp;n=21612' border='0' alt='' //a/p p"We recognize that the launch was not as smooth as we would have hoped," Desai told ReadWriteWeb. Perhaps that is a bit of an understatement./p div class="pullquote""We had a game plan and clearly it did not go smoothly. In hindsight, there are several things that could have been done better."br/- Keval Desai/divh2Stumbling Off the Starting Blocks/h2 pFor last Wednesday's relaunch, Digg migrated all of its traffic over to an entirely new back-end infrastructure built from the ground up over the course of 18 months. The new system had been tested in beta for almost two months, but the preparations the site conducted for the public release apparently fell short of what was needed to handle last week's traffic surge./p p"Hindsight is 20/20. We made a calculated decision to test the site in beta and then launch," Desai says. "We had a game plan and clearly it did not go smoothly. In hindsight, there are several things that could have been done better."/p pA few of those "several things" include a slower roll-out and a better explanation of the site's rationale, admits Desai. With many Internet sites, he explains, features are more continually released to the public, not all at once as was the case with Digg 4. Part of the reason for rewriting the back-end of the site was to allow for easier and more frequent product iterations - a practice Digg intends to implement in the future./p h2Turning Negative into Positive/h2 pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/kevindtrt_aug10.jpg" class="alignright"/As for the backlash from frustrated Digg users, Desai says the company is thankful for their passion./p p"It's better than having no reaction," he says. "They have a right to say what they want to say, and for us it's all good feedback. We would rather not have users be frustrated, that was not a goal of ours, but we are reacting to those frustrations and making changes where they make sense while keeping our broader mission in mind."/p h2Going Forward/h2 pThat "broader mission," Desai says, includes continuing to grow the platform to provide for publishers, both large and small, as well as its users that make the site what it is. Since launching v4, Digg has seen traffic at equal or higher numbers each day, and the My News section has helped send registration numbers through the roof./p pBut as Desai admits, "it is still early going," and if Digg wants to continue to leverage its recent growth, it will need to more carefully and more stably iterate its product in the future./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/one_week_later_digg_vp_talks_v4_launch_backlash_future.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/IgRXtvyKXuAiCetWp_ZrUPy4d1A/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/IgRXtvyKXuAiCetWp_ZrUPy4d1A/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/IgRXtvyKXuAiCetWp_ZrUPy4d1A/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/IgRXtvyKXuAiCetWp_ZrUPy4d1A/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=qa8IN0pwjzM:6ZQjbljP3iE:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/qa8IN0pwjzM" height="1" width="1"/

pobject width="600" height="362"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/--Ckz_O6oE0?fs=1amp;hl=en_USamp;rel=0"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/--Ckz_O6oE0?fs=1amp;hl=en_USamp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="600" height="362"/embed/object/p pTwice an hour, an a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Ckz_O6oE0amp;feature=player_embedded"animated version/a of Google CEO Eric Schmidt can currently be seen giving away free ice cream to little kids in return for their a href="http://searchengineland.com/consumer-watchdog-airs-anti-google-cartoon-at-times-square-49772"private information/a on a 540 square foot screen hovering over New York's Times Square. The cartoon was produced by a "a href="http://insidegoogle.com/about/"Inside Google/a," a project of the non-partisan a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/"Consumer Watchdog/a group, that wants to draw attention to what it a href="http://insidegoogle.com/2010/08/do-not-track-me/"perceives/a as Google CEO Eric Schmidt's "lack of regard for our online privacy."/p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21613amp;cb=21613' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21613amp;n=21613' border='0' alt='' //a/p h2Eric Schmidt is "Out of Control"/h2 pThe reason for this? According to "Inside Google," Eric Schmidt is "out of control. When questioned about privacy, he has said, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Recently, he suggested children could change their names when they got older if they wanted to escape what was embarrassing and public in their online lives.'" /p h2Do Not Track Me List/h2 pThe project advocates the creation of a "a href="http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/corporateering/articles/?storyId=35866"Do Not Track Me/a" list, similar to the a href="https://www.donotcall.gov/"National Do Not Call Registry/a that allows users to prevent telemarketers from calling their phones. Inside Google is being supported by the a href="http://www.rosefdn.org/article.php?list=typeamp;type=29"Rose Foundation/a. /p pIt's worth noting that Google already allows consumers to a href="http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html"opt out of personalized advertising/a and a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/opting_out_of_google_analytics_tracking_is_now_eas.php"Google Analytics tracking/a./p h2What do You Think?/h2 pWe can't help but think that the extreme caricature of Schmidt takes away from the overall message of the video. We're also not sure that the majority of people walking around on Times Square actually know who Schmidt is./p pWhat do you think? Are you worried about Google knowing too much about you? Do you think this video is an effective means of alerting people to the potential privacy issues online? Or is Google being singled out unfairly and the video should really feature Mark Zuckerberg?/p pemTip of the hat to Barry Schwartz at a href="http://searchengineland.com/consumer-watchdog-airs-anti-google-cartoon-at-times-square-49772"Search Engine Land/a for alerting us to this video./em/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/dont_track_me_anti-google_video_plays_on_times_square.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BZCw3wNq-De2wuRZxks-2ZPwlog/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BZCw3wNq-De2wuRZxks-2ZPwlog/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BZCw3wNq-De2wuRZxks-2ZPwlog/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/BZCw3wNq-De2wuRZxks-2ZPwlog/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=aJ7uohYDDhA:9L0P_02c--A:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/aJ7uohYDDhA" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/skype_logo_aug08.png"Skype a href="http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/09/10_way_video_calling.html"announced/a today that the latest beta version of Skype 5.0 would up the ante in terms of group video chat, as well as introduce a more stable and sleeker experience for its Windows users./p pWhen the company a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/skype_gets_group_video_chat.php"first introduced group chat/a in May, it limited the number of participants to five, but now it has doubled that number to 10./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21611amp;cb=21611' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21611amp;n=21611' border='0' alt='' //a/p pThis limitation was one of the primary things we focused on when we looked at the new feature, which we immediately compared to free, Web-based services like a href="http://tinychat.com"Tiny Chat/a. As we noted then, Tiny Chat offered more than double the number of live video/audio streams, with 12 users per room, but now Skype barely lags behind. The Skype blog offers words of warning on how to use Skype's video chat feature with your friends and family:/p blockquoteNote that everyone in a group video call now needs to be running this version, so if your friends, family or colleagues are using Beta 1, they'll have to upgrade before you can include them in group video calls./blockquote pIn addition to the increased video chat features, the second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a "refreshed user interface" along with a Skype Home "where you can follow your contacts' mood messages, set your profile picture and mood message, receive account notifications and learn more about using Skype."/p pWhile the company says it has fixed some stability issues, it notes that this is still a beta version so some bugs are to be expected. The second beta version of Skype 5.0 is a href="http://www.skype.com/go/download-beta?cm_mmc=socialm|skypeblogs-_-global|intl|en-_-bigblog-_-groupvideocalling|beta2"available for download now/a./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/skype_doubles_down_with_10-person_video_chat.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8BU7Fl5RqoKp2pXP1fkpqD7Zt3A/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8BU7Fl5RqoKp2pXP1fkpqD7Zt3A/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8BU7Fl5RqoKp2pXP1fkpqD7Zt3A/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8BU7Fl5RqoKp2pXP1fkpqD7Zt3A/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=B2xnJa4Wt3g:znExOeEIC2s:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/B2xnJa4Wt3g" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="helloworld.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/helloworld.png" width="135" height="48" /We've all been there. You want to isolate an issue with a server running on a port but want something quick and easy to verify if it is a host firewall problem or something else. Perhaps you are dealing with someone on the other end of the network that says it is a firewall problem. How you prove otherwise? /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21325amp;cb=21325' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21325amp;n=21325' border='0' alt='' //a/p pLuckily, there is a href="http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/" target="_blank"socat/a. While there are other network Swiss army knives out there such as Ncat and Netcat, you might find socat worth a try. Socat is available for most Linux and BSD distributions and there are binaries available for a href="http://www.gentilkiwi.com/telechargements-s43-t-socat.htm#englishversion" target="_blank"Windows/a./p h2Sock It To Me/h2 pIn this example, we have a service running on a high port (6000) on a machine "tom" and we want to prove that the firewall rule is indeed allowing traffic from the outside world from another machine "jerry"./p pscript src="http://gist.github.com/539833.js?file=socat%20example%201"/script/p pIn this very simple example, we are logged into tom and start by confirming that socat is installed on tom. Here we simply install the socat package via yum on tom. Next, we'll make sure that the firewall rules on tom are correct. Finally, we issue the socat one liner to listen on the port we want to test for the firewall allowing incoming traffic on port 6000 and we save our results on tom to /tmp./p pNow that we have a service listening on tom it's time to login to jerry and telnet to the tom on the specified port. We'll simply type in "Hello world" and then escape from our telnet session./p pAt this point we can review the file on tom:/tmp to see if our testing was fruitful. Success! Now, time to tell the other end that the problem isn't with the firewall on your end!/p pThere a huge number of a href="http://www.delicious.com/search?p=socat"socat one liners/a out there and the socat documentation is a href="http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/doc/socat.html#EXAMPLES" target="_blank"detailed/a. You can imagine the possibilities if in this example both tom and jerry both have access to socat./p pAgain, this is a very simple example but the power of socat is how quickly and easily you can verify and solve problems. Of course, socat use cases don't end there and you can quickly find socat being an indispensable tool for getting things done. /p pIf you already know and love socat, what are some of your favorite one liners?/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/09/sock-it-to-me-with-socat.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/aUGMeTOP6PEHWysnbyAYCH6q28w/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/aUGMeTOP6PEHWysnbyAYCH6q28w/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/aUGMeTOP6PEHWysnbyAYCH6q28w/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/aUGMeTOP6PEHWysnbyAYCH6q28w/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=SKnm79ZNEyo:PO75NUNjebc:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/SKnm79ZNEyo" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="texting_logo_hands.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/texting_logo_hands.jpg" width="150" height="135" class="mt-image-none" style="" /Lately, the discussion about texting has mostly focused on teenagers, who now often send hundreds of text messages per day. While voice calling is still the primary use of cell phones for adults, almost three quarters of all adults in the U.S. now send and receive text messages. According to a a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Cell-Phones-and-American-Adults.aspx"new study/a by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the average adult texter sends and receives 10 messages per day, but a minority (4%) now sends more than 200 messages every day./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21609amp;cb=21609' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21609amp;n=21609' border='0' alt='' //a/p pAbout 50% of all adults who use text messaging send between 1 and 10 messages, 25% send between 11 and 50 messages a day, 10% send between 50 and 200 messages. How does this compare to teenagers? According to an a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx"earlier/a Pew report, a smaller percentage of teenagers uses text messages (54%) than adults, but those that do use it tend to use it far more often than adults. About half of all teens in the U.S. send 50 or more text messages a day and one in three sends more than 100 messages a day./p img alt="pew_adult_texting_2010_2.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/pew_adult_texting_2010_2.png" width="610" height="521" class="mt-image-none" style="" / pThe number of adults who use text messaging has gone up steadily over the last few years. While 65% of adults in the U.S. were sending and receiving text messages in 2009, this number is now up to 72%./p h2A lot of Texting is About Location Sharing/h2 pWhen adults use text messaging, they mostly do so to say hello and chat (34%) and to report where they are and where someone else is (24%). Given how important location is for a lot of these usage patterns, we would think that there has to be a big market for location services (like a href="http://echoecho.me/Info/PC/"EchoEcho/a) that make private location sharing between cell phones easy./p h2More Statistics about Adult Cell Phone Usage/h2 ul li82% of adults in the U.S. own a cell phone (83% of all men, 81% of all women)/li liwomen make slightly fewer calls with their cell phones than men/li li65% of adults say they have ever slept with their cell phone on or right next to their bed (and 90% of younger adults - who probably also use their phones as alarm clocks - say they have done so)/li li42% feel irritated when a call or text interrupts them/li li57% of adults with cell phones say that they have received unwanted or spam text messages (what exactly constitutes an "unwanted" text message isn't clear in Pew's question, however)/li/ul img alt="pew_adult_texting_2010.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/pew_adult_texting_2010.png" width="610" height="519" class="mt-image-none" style="" / pLogo used courtesy of a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/4137160631/"Flickr user Dan Zen/a./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adults_sms_texting_its_not_just_for_teenagers_anymore.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/VORjF6wD-XCRdz6wWK7RnfJxTxQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/VORjF6wD-XCRdz6wWK7RnfJxTxQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/VORjF6wD-XCRdz6wWK7RnfJxTxQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/VORjF6wD-XCRdz6wWK7RnfJxTxQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=0MBFXK-DpXQ:1bNbsNHXxaI:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/0MBFXK-DpXQ" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://readwriteweb.com/images/SamsungGALAXY_-20100902-102603.jpg" alt="SamsungGALAXY%20"/em"...a tablet is, crucially, ema more shareable computer/em. A laptop, with its fragile hinge-ware and space-gobbling keyboard, is just not comfy to share. A tablet is easier to bring to the caf�, easier to hand across the table or along the sofa, easier to seize in the heat of the moment, easier to hold up in triumph, easier to set aside when you need to meet someone's eyes./p pHow big a market is that? Anyone who says they know is lying."/em/p p-Google's a href="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/09/02/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab"Tim Bray/a, co-creator of XML and now Android Developer Advocate, discussing the new a href="http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/"Samsung Galaxy Tab/a, and tablet computers in general. The Galaxy Tab has a 7" screen (almost 30% smaller than the iPad screen) and runs Android 2.2 (Froyo)./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21610amp;cb=21610' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21610amp;n=21610' border='0' alt='' //a/p pThat was certainly our experience from the beginning with the iPad. Sarah Perez noted when her arrived that it was Easter weekend and took it to a holiday gathering. You can read about the eye-opening experience she had in her post a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ipad_the_first_real_family_computer.php"iPad: The First Real Family Computer/a./p pI just handed my visiting niece our iPad as soon as she woke up. Her four year-old sister greeted me on my last trip to her house with a shout of "Hi Uncle Marshall! Did you bring that iPad??"/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tablet_computers_will_thrive_because_they_are_shar.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/vdnZtmkPkiW9Emi0sq78XOiay98/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/vdnZtmkPkiW9Emi0sq78XOiay98/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/vdnZtmkPkiW9Emi0sq78XOiay98/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/vdnZtmkPkiW9Emi0sq78XOiay98/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=lAr0gccS1N4:RvCEFHxfqiI:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/lAr0gccS1N4" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/assets_c/2010/03/top-HarmonySP-Products-thumb-130x98-15040.png" The announcement of a href="http://google.com"Google/a's a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_launches_priority_inbox_to_fight_email_overload.php"Gmail Priority Inbox/a likely made more than a few enterprise knowledge workers stuck with a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/"Microsoft Outlook/a and drowning in e-mail quite envious of Gmail. That is, if they weren't envious already. Marshall also took a look at a few plugins and services that are a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/greplin_wisestamp_email_apps.php"turning e-mail into a platform/a, including the incredible a href="http://rapportive.com"Rapportive/a./p pLucky for Outlook users, there are actually several plugins to extend Outlook's functionality and ease that Gmail envy. E-mail addons have been a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/xobni_xoopit_gmail_labs_inbox_addons_are_getting_hot.php"heating up/a for a a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/03/three-extensions-that-make-out.php"while now/a. Here are five plugins you should check out, whether you have Gmail envy or not./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21586amp;cb=21586' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21586amp;n=21586' border='0' alt='' //a/p h2ClearContext/h2 pimg alt="ClearContext screenshot" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/images/clearcontext_priorities_0910.png" width="576" height="381" //p pIf you're looking for something similar to Priority Inbox, give a href="http://clearcontext.com"ClearContext/a a shot. ClearContext analyzes your e-mail and searches for patterns of behavior. It then prioritizes incoming e-mail and can offer suggestions on where to file particular e-mails. It's not perfect - I wouldn't rely on it to never miss important e-mails - but it can help cut through the clutter./p pIt's designed to work well with the Getting Things Done workflow and uses folders as "projects" and enables you to create tasks easily from any e-mail./p h2Xobni/h2 pimg src="http://static.flickr.com/2211/2188791878_03b8a3b025.jpg"/p pIf you're more focused on search instead of filing, a href=""Xobni/a, which we've covered a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/fastsearch?search=Xobnix=0y=0"several times/a offers a powerful search functionality./p pAnd if you're suffering from Rapportive envy, Xobni also brings social network profiles right into your inbox./p pAnd for those really interested in "e-mail as a platform" a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/xobni_allows_developers_to_create_contextual_apps.php"Xobni has a development platform/a for both Outlook and Gmail./p h2Outlook Social Connector/h2 pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/images/outlook_connector_screenshot.jpg"/p pIf you just want a plugin that brings social networking into Outlook, Microsoft has its a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/07/outlook-social-connector-facebook.php"own free plugin/a that does just that./p h2Lookeen/h2 pimg alt="Lookeen screenshot" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/images/lookeen_screenshot_0910.jpg" width="686" height="371" //p pOn the other hand, if you're only interested in search and don't want the social networking features, Xobni competitor a href="http://www.lookeen.net"Lookeen/a is worth a look./p h2Baydin/h2 pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/images/baydin_screenshot_0610.jpg"/p pa href="http://baydin.com/"Baydin/a has its own quirky search ideas, which we've a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/06/what-is-unsearch.php"covered here/a. Its flagship "unsearch" product is still forthcoming. In the meantime, some might find its a href="http://www.baydin.com/boomerang/"Boomberang/a tool useful: you can specify a time you want an e-mail to be sent to you. (Baydin also has a Gmail version is beta.)/p h2How Do You Deal with E-Mail Overload in Outlook/h2 pDo you use any plugins to manage the e-mail firehose in Outlook? Or do you have any special strategies for coping with your mail? Let us know!/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/09/2-plugins-for-outlook-users-wi.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/WmE03_AcAZCFv-IoqBMzAjFNOj4/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/WmE03_AcAZCFv-IoqBMzAjFNOj4/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/WmE03_AcAZCFv-IoqBMzAjFNOj4/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/WmE03_AcAZCFv-IoqBMzAjFNOj4/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=-0OYseR_yXA:BI5ch4zKHBk:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/-0OYseR_yXA" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/itunes_ping_logo.jpg"a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/ping/"Ping/a, Apple's new social network, is the standout feature in a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/"iTunes 10/a, the most recent update to Apple's music management application. Within Ping, you can find and follow your favorite bands and your friends as well as recommend or leave notes about the music you listen to. Ping adds a new layer to iTunes - a social layer focused on discovery, not only of new tracks you'll want to buy (as is the obvious goal), but it also lets you discover news from artists you care about, including concert updates, photos, videos and more. /p pAfter spending some time with the social network, we rounded up what we believe are the ten most important things you need to know about Ping, as well as some of the possibly misunderstood features. /p pIs Ping for you? Read on to find out. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21608amp;cb=21608' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21608amp;n=21608' border='0' alt='' //a/p h21. It's Not a Standalone Website or Mobile Application /h2 pPing is only a feature emwithin/em iTunes, in both the desktop application for Mac and PC and the mobile application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The only thing you'll find at www.ping.com (besides a lot of new traffic from confused people looking for music news) are golf clubs and golf bags. That's not Apple's Ping. /p h22. You Don't Have to Use It/h2 pIf the idea of emyet another social network /emmakes your skin crawl, have no fear - you can still update to iTunes 10 without being forced into the glamorous world of social sharing. Ping, available as an option on the left-side of iTunes, is turned off by default. If you want in, you have to push the big button that reads: "Turn on Ping." /p h23. Your Profile Information is Public/h2 pAlthough Ping offers different levels of privacy (more on that in #5) , your actual Ping profile information (name, hometown, gender, photo, etc.) is considered public information, at least according to the disclosure within iTunes. If you're in "Private" mode, your name and picture will appear next to any comments or reviews you post. That's not a major concern for most people, but it will be for some who aren't interested in establishing a public persona on the Internet. It doesn't appear that your gender, hometown or "About Me" information is disclosed anywhere when you're in "Private" mode, but we would still recommend caution before using it for crass or offensive commentary. You never know how public it could become in a future version of Ping. /p h24. You uCan/u Hide Your Embarrassing Music Choices from Your Profile and Still Use Ping/h2 pSome people may avoid Ping because they're afraid of revealing to the world their secret obsession with '80's hair metal or Broadway show tunes, perhaps. But even if you decide to list yourself publicly on Ping, your "Music I Like" (music you like, rate, review or purchase) can be hidden from view. During setup, just click the 3rd bullet point "Don't display music that I like on my profile."em /em/p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/ping_music.png" pem(Side note: Ping has mysteriously added Peter Frampton to my likes even though I've never bought, streamed or rated his music - I swear! I first assumed it was a bug, but then realized that Ping is tying in with the shared library on another computer in the house which is used by someone else, but often under my username, so we can share our purchases. Uh-oh!). /em/p h25. You Can Be Anti-Social and Still Use Ping /h2 pThe privacy settings in Ping are incredibly simple: you're either strongpublic/strong or strongprivate/strong. If you choose to be "Public," you can allow others to follow you without approval, the same as Twitter, or you can manually review and approve friend requests, the same as Facebook. If you're "Private," no one can follow you. However, your name and photo will appear for some actions, such as when you comment or write reviews. /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/ping_private.png" h26. You're Going to Hate Ping's Recommendations/h2 pPing is no emGenius/em - that is, it doesn't tap into your own personal "genius" recommendations from iTunes when it suggests artists you should follow. Instead, Ping surfaces the most popular artists and bands instead. At launch time this includes artists like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, U2 and Linkin Park. Not tying in iTunes' "Genius" feature with Ping is a huge miss on Apple's part. We hope they fix that soon. /p h27. Your Profile URL is Long and Weird /h2 pWant to invite a friend to check out your profile on Ping? Good luck with that. You can't simply give them a username or expect them to type in an easy to remember URL. Instead, a typical Ping profile URL (accessed by a href="http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/09/02/tip-finding-your-ping-profile-url"right-clicking on your name/a on your profile page), is a long, unwieldy Web address like http://c.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZConnections.woa/wa/viewProfile?userId=12345678. Better invite them via email instead (see #8). /p h28. Finding and Inviting Friends is Harder Than It Should Be/h2 pThere is a search feature for locating people using Ping, but there's a delay between adding a new account to Ping and it being available within the search index. What that means is if your friend just signed up with Ping, you may not be able to locate him or her by doing a search right away. (At least, that was our experience.) As noted above, you can invite people to join Ping via email, a hugely outdated method of building a social network friend list. /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/ping_facebook.png" pPing also currently suggests you should "connect with Facebook," which is an error. Apple pulled Facebook support from Ping at the last minute due to "a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100902/steve-jobs-on-why-facebook-is-not-part-of-apples-new-ping-music-social-network-onerous-terms/"onerous terms that we could not agree to/a," according CEO Steve Jobs. Too bad Apple forgot to re-write the text suggesting Facebook Connect as an option. Oops!/p h29. Ping Doesn't Know About Your In-Library Ratings/h2 pAlthough for years you may have rated your music collection using iTunes' stars, Ping isn't aware of this activity nor does it allow you to import it into your profile. Instead, you "like" (click the thumbs up button) or "post" (add a note) using the new buttons that appear in iTunes to make your likes and dislikes known to your followers, assuming you have any. /p h210. Ping is Music-Only, For Now/h2 pAt launch, Ping only works with music, not podcasts, videos or apps. You can only access the options to "like" and "post" when you're in the Music section of iTunes - you can't recommend any other types of media. That's incredibly sad, we think, especially given how the App Store alone now hosts some 250,000+ mobile applications. We would love to know which ones our friends are using, not to mention what shows and movies they like or what podcasts they recommend. If Ping takes off, there's a good chance these media types will be "likeable" in a future version of Ping...well, at least we hope that's the case. /p h2Conclusion: Ping is Only OK/h2 div class="pullquote"See also: a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ping_first_look_at_the_itunes_social_network.php"Ping: First Look at the iTunes Social Network/a/div pFor now, Ping is only OK - and that's being generous. It's like seeing a project that's still being built. That's not to say that a social network within iTunes doesn't have potential. As Jobs noted on stage, iTunes has 160 million users. That's nothing to sniff at. But given that Ping doesn't allow you to import your Facebook friends, doesn't recommend artists you actually like and doesn't extend beyond music, it's somewhat of a non-starter for now. Fun to poke around in, sure, but not incredibly useful just yet. /p pDon't give up on Ping, though - the features it needs to be successful aren't beyond Apple's grasp. If updated, it could easily become emthe /emplace to find and discover music and hopefully, more. It's not there today, but it's worth watching./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/10_things_you_need_to_know_about_apples_new_social_network_ping.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/9tpU-8CAFaZU0PDs_Tei1uRDn6c/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/9tpU-8CAFaZU0PDs_Tei1uRDn6c/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/9tpU-8CAFaZU0PDs_Tei1uRDn6c/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/9tpU-8CAFaZU0PDs_Tei1uRDn6c/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=GcVI9lpU8-I:qnYjbhxnEII:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/GcVI9lpU8-I" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="aol_google_logo.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/aol_google_logo.png" width="120" height="120" class="mt-image-none" style="" /Google and a href="http://aol.com"AOL/a just a href="http://corp.aol.com/2010/09/02/aol-and-google-renew-and-expand-global-partnership/"announced/a that they have renewed their global search alliance for another five years. Google will continue to power search on all of AOLs properties. For the most part, the new agreement just reinforces the existing contract, but the two companies also plan to expand their current alliance to cover mobile search and AOLs videos will now be syndicated on YouTube. According to the latest a href="http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/8/comScore_Releases_July_2010_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings"data/a from Web analytics firm comScore, AOL currently accounts for 2.3% of the search market in the U.S./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21607amp;cb=21607' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21607amp;n=21607' border='0' alt='' //a/p pIn his statement about today's announcement, Google's CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt notes that "It's particularly exciting to see our relationship expand into video and mobile. These areas are now at the heart of users' online experiences and at the core of both of our businesses." As AOL is currently renewing its focus on mobile apps, it only makes sense for this renewed search agreement to specifically cover this area, too. While the two companies did not disclose any financial details of the new deal, AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong told Bloomberg earlier today that "this deal is a lot of revenue and a lot of potential profits for AOL."/p pThe new agreement between AOL and Google comes shortly after Microsoft and Yahoo finalized the a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_finalizes_transition_to_bing.php"transition/a from Yahoo's search engine to Microsoft's Bing. Based on comScore's data, Google and AOL currently command about 68.1% of the search market in the U.S. and the combined market share of Microsoft and Yahoo is about 28.1%. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_and_aol_renew_search_agreement_for_another.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kE9JyGzPay2nYYhNH9lN6J7Y7AQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kE9JyGzPay2nYYhNH9lN6J7Y7AQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kE9JyGzPay2nYYhNH9lN6J7Y7AQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/kE9JyGzPay2nYYhNH9lN6J7Y7AQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=6ZEClPkYro0:zouGNpVKJ9s:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/6ZEClPkYro0" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/reddit_jan_09.jpg"Social news and bookmark site a href="http://reddit.com"Reddit/a has been working lately to battle against its stereotyping as the less-significant, red-headed stepchild to a href="http://digg.com"Digg/a. /p pAfter Digg-founder Kevin Rose a href="http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2010/8/27/digg-v4-release-iterate-repeat.html"revealed Digg's July traffic numbers/a on his blog, Reddit administrator and programmer a href="http://www.reddit.com/user/KeyserSosa"KeyserSosa/a publicly a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/d8d1f/dear_entire_mainstream_media_please_stop/"requested/a that the "entire mainstream media" quit with the diminutive adjectives already, as Reddit looks to have more traffic, not less, than Digg./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21606amp;cb=21606' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21606amp;n=21606' border='0' alt='' //a/p pIn July, Reddit a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/reddit_calls_out_experts_for_misunderestimating_it.php"claimed/a that experts were "misunderestimating" its traffic and it didn't know why. According to Reddit programmer Mike Shiraldi, a number of third-party Web traffic measurement services were grossly underestimating its traffic. According to its own numbers from Google Analytics, Reddit saw "more than 8,000,000 unique visitors in the last 30 days and 400,000,000 pageviews" when we wrote about their traffic measurement issues in July. /p pIn his blog post, Kevin Rose revealed that Digg had "200+ Million page views in July" - a number that seems to contradict what Reddit sees as persistent attempts by the mainstream media to minimize its impact and relevance in comparison to other social bookmarking sites like Digg. As one user a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/d8d1f/dear_entire_mainstream_media_please_stop/c0yaw4c"notes in the comments/a, Reddit has only 1/20th of the staff, but the numbers seem to show that it has at least 40% more traffic./p pimg alt="reddit-isnt-small-compared-to-digg.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/reddit-isnt-small-compared-to-digg.jpg" width="610" height="610" class="mt-image-none" style="" //p pSee a full-size version of the image a href="http://i.imgur.com/jiHka.png"here/a./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/reddit_to_mainstream_media_we_aint_small_infograph.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/685Mr3g3G5O3IBz8FA9Z6Til8Pw/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/685Mr3g3G5O3IBz8FA9Z6Til8Pw/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/685Mr3g3G5O3IBz8FA9Z6Til8Pw/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/685Mr3g3G5O3IBz8FA9Z6Til8Pw/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=e7uPwKMqIqM:KgiQH4EPzZ4:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/e7uPwKMqIqM" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="wordpress_cache_0810.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/wordpress_cache_0810.jpg" width="100" height="75" /One of the most common suggestions to bloggers who use shared hosting is that they will be much better off with a VPS or a dedicated server. I agree in principle; however, this doesn't mean the server will run smoothly without a bit of tweaking./p pI'm currently in the process of moving several WordPress blogs from a dedicated server to a VPS. After moving five or six blogs, I noticed the server was slowing to a crawl, with high load after just a week of uptime. None of the blogs are particularly busy. What would solve this problem?/p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21566amp;cb=21566' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21566amp;n=21566' border='0' alt='' //a/p h2WP-SuperCache/h2 pA quick way (no pun intended) to speed up WordPress is to install WP-SuperCache. This is the first thing I tried, but I didn't notice much of an improvement./p h2Server Security/h2 pSecurity configuration changes may help if the slowness is caused by people exploiting weaknesses on your server. But this didn't help either./p h2php-apc/h2 pThe trick that worked for me was to install php-apc. Assuming you've got access to the command line and it's a Linux box, installation is simply a case of issuing the following command:/p ppresudo apt-get install php-apc/pre/p pThis may vary depending on your Linux distro./p h2Result/h2 pInstalling php-apc has reduced the server load from a peak of 30 or 40 right down to a peak of 0.5, and the server has been happily running for a few days without any major problems./p pemPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine-events/3832855830/"Mykl Roventine: Out About/a/em/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/09/hack-of-the-day-speeding-up-wordpress-on-a-vps.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/mzeue-skpFSZFDUE14H3pq-DtTg/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/mzeue-skpFSZFDUE14H3pq-DtTg/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/mzeue-skpFSZFDUE14H3pq-DtTg/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/mzeue-skpFSZFDUE14H3pq-DtTg/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=pYlHjwjsW-E:37ro68RND14:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/pYlHjwjsW-E" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/chrome_logo_may09.jpg"Google is a href="http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html"celebrating/a the second anniversary of its Google Chrome browser with the a href="http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2010/09/stable-and-beta-channel-updates.html"release of new stable and beta/a versions that have a cleaner and simpler user interface and increased speed and performance./p pAs the Google Chrome Blog points out, Chrome 6 is years beyond where most imagined browser technology would be when Chrome was first introduced just two years ago./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21605amp;cb=21605' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21605amp;n=21605' border='0' alt='' //a/p pThe a href="http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html"Google Chrome Blog/a takes a retrospective look at how much browsers have changed over the past two years, remarking that when Chrome was first introduced in August of 2008, "JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn't yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project."/p pIn addition to some cosmetic changes, the new version of Chrome brings form autofill features, making it so you don't have to type in again and again that ridiculously long email address you now regret choosing. It also brings extension and autofill synchronization, meaning that your autofill data will remain the same from desktop to laptop to netbook. /p pAmong the myriad features, the user interface seems to have an impact in the browser market. The soon-to-be-released Internet Explorer 9 a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/will_microsoft_join_the_future_with_internet_explo.php"looks like it stole a page/a from Chrome, adopting the clean and simple design that lets the browser step out of the way. Chrome's design manages to portray what we find most appealing about Chrome (which replaced Firefox as the default browser months ago now) - its lightweight operation. Just as it steps out of the way of the page, in terms of design, the browser manages to step out of the way of other programs, managing to run well (even on a netbook) without hogging all of the processing power. /p pIf you haven't yet, we highly recommend a href="http://google.com/chrome"giving Chrome a spin/a./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_chrome_turns_2_with_version_6_release.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/d4hxf7aB8yJXb65f4Xlq-cMeFvA/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/d4hxf7aB8yJXb65f4Xlq-cMeFvA/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/d4hxf7aB8yJXb65f4Xlq-cMeFvA/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/d4hxf7aB8yJXb65f4Xlq-cMeFvA/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=A4hiHGx6CIQ:OnXbB4yru_U:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/A4hiHGx6CIQ" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/twitter-for-ipad.jpg"Twitter has just launched a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8"its first official iPad application/a, and a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8"the reviews/a so far have been glowing. The new app offers a few notable features, such as panes for interacting with content within a stream, media which displays inline without slowing you down and gesture support for common Twitter actions. /p pWhat stands out the most about this new application is not a summary of its features, however. It's how the app fits into this growing trend that positions the iPad as the go-to device for consuming streams. With its touchscreen interface, the Apple tablet is ideal for both viewing and interacting with flows of information - not just tweets, but also Facebook status updates, news, RSS feeds, photos and more. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21604amp;cb=21604' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21604amp;n=21604' border='0' alt='' //a/p h2Twitter for iPad: The Good/h2 pWith the official a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8"Twitter for iPad/a application, the process for interacting with Twitter's fast-updating stream of content has been addressed through the use of panes. You tap on tweets to open a pane on the right where you can see the posted video or photo, or, as is often the case on Twitter, the Web page being linked to via someone's status update. There, within this new pane, the content loads./p pBut the pane can also be pushed off slightly to the side with a swiping motion so that you can continue to browse through the stream of tweets on the left. By the time the content loads on the right (a href="http://blog.twitter.com/2010/09/twitter-for-ipad-sharing-content-in.html"Twitter's blog post/a puts it well: em"let's be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load"/em), you're ready to skim the news, watch the video, etc. and then you can move on to the tweet you've already queued up to take its place./p pInitially, you'll have to figure out how this particular interaction works, but after a minute or two, it will be emswipe, swipe, swipe, swipe/em and you'll quickly become addicted to the flow. /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/twitter_for_ipad.PNG"/p h2Twitter for iPad: The Bad/h2 pThe other interactions, unfortunately - like the pinch to view author details or using two fingers to pull down on a tweet and see the entire conversation thread - are slightly less intuitive. Maybe more than emslightly/em, to be honest. There's a learning curve./p pFor example, you first have to learn how to "properly" tap a tweet. Tap on the tweet itself and you see the right-side pane and its associated content (like the photo, video, news item or even a stream of the hashtag mentioned). Tap accidentally on an @mention within the tweet, however, and you'll end up seeing that person's profile information instead, displayed below the tweet in the right-side pane, and not the associated content. This can get a bit confusing for the new user, and it can easily slow you down too, because you have to focus on where to tap. /p pThe two-finger pull-down has to be done slowly or it flips up like a window shade whose cord you just yanked and let go. The pinch a tweet - well, let's be honest here - someone is going to have to release a YouTube instruction video for that gesture. a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VAjxn1qzko"(Oh, thank you./a) /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/twitter_for_ipad2.PNG"/p pIn other words, Twitter for iPad is not perfect. (And no, it didn't just "kill" all the other Twitter applications, a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/twitter-for-ipad"the Twitter website/a, or anything else). It's a good enough app, but it may not be for you. /p h2Beyond the Twitter App: Stream Consumption is the New iPad Trend/h2 pBut these days, there are plenty of other applications to choose from. We've previously been fans of a href="http://twitterrific.com/ipad"Twitterific for iPad/a, but it wasn't exactly ground-breaking in its design. However, other startups, including a href="http://www.alphonsolabs.com/"Pulse/a, a href="http://flipboard.com/"Flipboard/a, a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ews-must-list-from-entertainment/id364294739?mt=8"Entertainment Weekly's Must List/a, a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ipad"ABC News/a, a href="http://reederapp.com/ipad/"Reeder/a and even some interactive iPad magazines like a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wired-magazine/id373903654?mt=8"Wired/a, certainly are. Wired and EW's Must List each present new visions for magazine content on the iPad, both in long form and short. Pulse and Reeder are gorgeous, interactive news readers, and while ABC News may be a bit hokey for you, with its Google Earth-esque spinning globe interface, it's definitely doing something different. Whether its interface ends up winning or losing in the long run is almost besides the point - the point is that emstrongnew interfaces are possible now, thanks to the iPad. /strong/em/p pAt the top of the heap today, though, is a href="http://flipboard.com/"Flipboard/a, a social news reading application we recently called "a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_flipboard_is_already_one_of_the_best_ipad_apps.php"one of the best iPad apps available/a." In reality, that's selling it a bit short. It's one of the best apps available, period, iPad or not. In comparison with Twitter for iPad, the app clearly excels. There's no learning curve - the entire process is 100% intuitive. And any app that isn't needs to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate whether its special "tweaks" really work./p pTwitter for iPad, despite its many innovations, involves several minutes of practice to get it right. You couldn't hand it over to Grandma without a how-to class either. And that's not Grandma's fault - she readily mastered using iPad's built-in photo gallery application despite never owning or using a computer. We would argue that good design makes new interactions simple and intuitive - you don't think, don't don't have to practice and you certainly don't have to watch a video to figure out how you "pinch a tweet." You just emswipe, tap, pinch, swipe, /emand all somewhat mindlessly. Twitter for iPad is a good start and is sure to be a hit among early adopters, and there's no arguing it showcases some innovative ideas, but it's not a home run just yet. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitters_new_ipad_app_shines_but_not_perfect.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/JHN884I6ikS76h_eK08w1UEwdks/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/JHN884I6ikS76h_eK08w1UEwdks/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/JHN884I6ikS76h_eK08w1UEwdks/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/JHN884I6ikS76h_eK08w1UEwdks/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=hSG_O5KplpE:AoCnl3qQTSs:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/hSG_O5KplpE" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/itunes_ping_logo.jpg" /Part of the new a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/live_blog_apples_fall_event.php"iTunes 10 software/a, announced and a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_event_announcements_rundown_ios_41_new_ipods.php"launched/a yesterday, is a significant new social networking feature for iTunes called a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/ping/"Ping/a. It allows you to comment on music, 'like' it a la Facebook, or rate it. Ping is also very similar to Twitter, in that you can 'follow' people and music stars. All of this happens inside of the iTunes application, either on your computer, iPhone or iPod Touch./p pWe took the new feature for a spin and came away intrigued, despite some initial flaws. We do however wonder at the overly commercial focus of Ping. Is this really about social networking, or mostly for Apple and artists to sell more music?/p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21603amp;cb=21603' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21603amp;n=21603' border='0' alt='' //a/p h2How to Get Ping/h2 pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/ping_iphone.jpg" align="right" /To access Ping, you first need to a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/"download iTunes 10/a onto your computer. You'll need to also download 300+ MB worth of iPhone Software Update, to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch. /p pOn the computer, once you've downloaded iTunes 10 click the iTunes Store link in the sidebar. You'll see a quot;Get Startedquot; link in the top right of that page (also 'Ping' appears as a menu option in the sidebar). You'll need to turn on the Ping feature and agree to Apple's privacy policy. After that, create a profile./p pNote that you may encounter issues with uploading a profile photo and connecting to Facebook. If you wait for about 10 minutes, eventually your photo will upload. However Facebook Connect appears to be broken at this stage. We assume these are technical teething issues./p pOnce you have your profile set up, you're invited to follow other people and also stars like Lady Gaga and U2. This is very similar to how Twitter works, except that it's all happening inside of iTunes (on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch). /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/itunes_ping1.jpg" //p h2Social Networking, or Prodding You to The Cash Register?/h2 pPing isn't entirely intuitive. It took some head scratching to figure out that to actually post content, you need to be in the iTunes Store. You can't create new content from within Ping itself, although you can comment on what others have added. /p pTo add new content to your Ping stream, go to the iTunes Store and either comment on an album, 'like' it or give it a star rating. /p pThe fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?/p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/itunes_ping2.jpg" //p h2Follow The Stars/h2 pTo track - and optionally comment on - what others are doing, click on the Recent Activity feed in Ping./p pPing places more focus on feature accounts than Twitter, inviting you to quot;set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping.quot; The service comes pre-loaded with accounts for some leading pop, rock and other music acts. /p pThese accounts don't offer much more than what the stars can already do on Facebook and Twitter. The main difference is that it's within an application where people can buy the music. /p pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/ping_katyperry.jpg" //p h2I'll Follow You (If You Share My Music Tastes)/h2 pOverall, I can see Ping being useful for following friends who have similar tastes in music to me. In those cases, if they 'like' a new album then it's a great recommendation - and yes, I'm more likely to buy it. Also the ability to see which concerts they plan to go to is a useful feature./p pdiv class="pullquote"See also: a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/10_things_you_need_to_know_about_apples_new_social_network_ping.php"10 Things You Need to Know About Ping/a/divHowever, Ping is probably not going to be very useful for following friends who don't share my music tastes. That could be most of them. You may be a mate of mine on Facebook, but if you listen to electronica then sorry I'm not very interested in the content you're liking (you probably feel the same way about the alternative music I tend to favor)./p pHave you tested out Ping yet? Let us know your verdict in the comments!/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ping_first_look_at_the_itunes_social_network.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/m2fDsxmURJCN6v0HvO6SFwkxf9U/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/m2fDsxmURJCN6v0HvO6SFwkxf9U/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/m2fDsxmURJCN6v0HvO6SFwkxf9U/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/m2fDsxmURJCN6v0HvO6SFwkxf9U/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=5fzOg0AhUDc:Wkw8P0T9nuE:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/5fzOg0AhUDc" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="phone7.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/phone7.jpg" width="150" height="78" class="mt-image-none" style="" /Microsoft's new mobile OS has shipped to handset makers and will be appearing on phones in time for the holiday season, the company a href="http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/08/23/a-developer-s-roadmap-to-windows-phone-7-launch-timing.aspx"announced/a today./p pThe stage is set for Microsoft to either rock the mobile world with a mainstream alternative to the iPhone and Android platforms, rebounding after a string of failures a la Bing, or flop in its attempt to catch up after "a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/108119-microsofts-ballmer-we-qmissedq-on-mobile"missing a cycle/a."/p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21602amp;cb=21602' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21602amp;n=21602' border='0' alt='' //a/p pimg alt="phone7home.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/phone7home.jpg" width="269" height="497" class="mt-image-right" style="float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;" /The long-awaited update to Windows Mobile is expected to show up on devices from Dell, HTC, Samsung and LG, so there is the possibility that an exciting handset like the a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/dell-lightning-the-ultimate-windows-phone-7-device-leaks-out/"Dell Lightning/a could rekindle interest in Microsoft's mobile offerings./p pWindows Phone 7 is designed around tasks with programs pushing information to the home screen. This "hubs" design may lessen the need for third-party apps. But Microsoft is still hoping apps can be evangelists for Phone 7, a href="http://developer.windowsphone.com/"offering/a developers tools and an emulator last month for free. Microsoft a href="http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2010/08/23/a-developer-s-roadmap-to-windows-phone-7-launch-timing.aspx"says/a the tools have been downloaded more than 300,000 times./p pThe OS has gotten mixed reviews, including a scathing a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/windows-phone-7-dont-bother-disaster-211?page=0,0"critique/a from InfoWorld's Galen Gruman, who called it "a tepid knockoff of a 2007-era iPhone" and claimed it was "a platform no carrier, device maker, developer or user should bother with." Other reviewers a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/top-10-features-of-windows-phone-7/4337"praised/a the OS for its zoomy user interface, integration with Microsoft Office, voice search and other features./p pMicrosoft has been a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/214832.asp"agonizing/a over the development of the Phone 7 OS, a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/sep/01/windows-phone-7-costs-billions"throwing money at the launch/a, carefully studying how people use their phones and engineering down to the most minute details. For example, Windows Phone 7 will a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/218282.asp"feature/a eight keypad tones, so that a user will hear slightly different clicks when typing instead of the same tone repeatedly as is the case with the iPhone. /p pobject width="640" height="385"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IlsK6-y6cSw?fs=1amp;hl=en_US"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IlsK6-y6cSw?fs=1amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"/embed/objectemA Windows Phone 7 preview by InfoWeek in July./em/p pWhether the attention to detail pays off will be decided in a few months by consumers in the general public - who largely pay little attention to the OS pedigree of a phone, and can therefore be trusted to evaluate Windows Phone 7 without being biased by Microsoft's track record./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/windows_phone_7_ships_to.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/iMyIM0VxMlfyN5R-KooFPwRfCIU/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/iMyIM0VxMlfyN5R-KooFPwRfCIU/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/iMyIM0VxMlfyN5R-KooFPwRfCIU/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/iMyIM0VxMlfyN5R-KooFPwRfCIU/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=AWhR8mNu2Rs:_tQ0zNuVqgI:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/AWhR8mNu2Rs" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="verizon.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/assets_c/2010/09/verizon-thumb-150x97-21433.jpg" width="150" height="97"/Service providers are a lynchpin in a href="http://www.vmware.com"VMware's/a strategy to extend its virtualization technology into the cloud./p pIf the strategy works, VMware could become the leader in providing hybrid cloud infrastructures. It's a test for VMware's new foray into the cloud. And it has its risks. VMware is looking to provide an end-to-end platform that extends from the enterprise data center to the public cloud environments managed by the service providers./p pHow the technology performs will come to define VMware's position in the vast network of service providers that work with the majority of enterprise customers./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21601amp;cb=21601' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21601amp;n=21601' border='0' alt='' //a/p pVerizon is one of the companies that has opted to begin using VMware vCloud Director. This has to be VMware's highest profile partner. But in cloud computing, it is not well known. /p pBut Verizon is making a play into cloud computing. It calls its platform Computing-as-a- Service (CaaS)./p pIts latest enhancement to its CaaS platform is built on VMware vCloud Datacenter. It uses VMware's cloud infrastructure technology including VMware vSphere, the new VMware vCloud Director and VMware vShield security solutions. /p pVerizon is using the VMware technology to provide customers with both performance and security that can be audited. Verizon is banking that VMware will help enhance its security features such as layer 2 isolation and LDAP integration./p pVerizon will launch the service initially with the Intercontinental Hotel Group. It's a wordlwide field trial and a test to determine how the VMware platform will perform in the demanding and dynamic world of the hotel business./p pThe service providers are critical to VMware's success. Verizon will be a test to see how well the new VMware technology performs in a demanding environment./p pVerizon is offering a sophsiticated service. The goal is to extend its service with VMware across the enterprise and public clouds. If they can do that it will help show how VMware can help service providers provide hybrid cloud environments for its customers./p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/09/verizon-a-high-profile-vmware.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/gMC5rdeFszlbBw4rQjrQyHO_TWY/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/gMC5rdeFszlbBw4rQjrQyHO_TWY/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/gMC5rdeFszlbBw4rQjrQyHO_TWY/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/gMC5rdeFszlbBw4rQjrQyHO_TWY/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=4hkRs4LMTpU:bIuCDM-Amkw:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/4hkRs4LMTpU" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="billboard-logo.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/billboard-logo.jpg" width="150" height="150" class="mt-image-none" style="" /a href="http://www.billboard.com/#/"Billboard/a is best known for charts that rank the most popular music and musicians, which the weekly industry magazine a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/business/media/30hits.html?src=busln"started/a publishing in 1913 as a list of the most popular sheet music. Since then, topping the Billboard Hot 100 has become a coveted milestone for musicians, but the Billboard brand has lost some of its critical cache in recent decades, just as record companies saw their influence decline with the rise of the Internet. /p pBut it's clear Billboard knows it will lose relevance fast unless it can establish itself as an authority on music and the digital frontier./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21600amp;cb=21600' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21600amp;n=21600' border='0' alt='' //a/p pimg alt="billboard.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/billboard.jpg" width="605" height="362" class="mt-image-none" style="" /Billboard Magazine recently published a cover story on the best ten music startups of 2010, and the company, which includes Billboard Magazine, Billboard Events and Billboard.com, is hosting its first a href="http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i14021c49a0fca4d1d36f2769823f0916""Music App Awards"/a at something called "Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live!: The Music App Summit." Both lists, and the company's careful a href="http://www.billboard.com/#/footer/about-us"emphasis/a on Billboard.com as an entity separate and edgier than its print product, seem like a play at securing Billboard's reputation as the arbiter of what's important in music today./p pBillboard's Hot 100 and other lists are still coveted symbols for artists and labels. But the company has challengers on all sides from the iTunes and Last.fm charts as well as digital review sites like a href="http://pitchfork.com/"Pitchfork Media/a and a href="http://hypem.com/"Hype Machine/a. At least one company is a href="http://www.livemint.com/2010/08/30210722/Billboard-faces-competition-as.html?atype=tp"challenging/a Billboard's authority with a list it calls the a href="http://www.ultimatechart.com/"Ultimate Chart/a that factors in more modern metrics such as ringtone sales and how many times a song is streamed. (Although this list proved less than earth shattering - see our coverage, a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ultimate_chart_vs_billboard.php"Is Ultimate Chart Overhyped?/a)/p pBillboard is ultimately a trade publication aimed at industry insiders - many of whom are groping for an authority on what's popular after the record sales-driven revenue apocalypse. So it's crucial for it to have an accurate read on what's popular and therefore monetizable, and it's not unthinkable that it might succeed. Billboard has innovated with its charts over the years and the company says single sales and online streaming are now factored into its rankings along with radio airplay and album sales. /p pBillboard.com even tracks the top 40 a href="http://www.billboard.com/charts/digital-songs?tag=chscr1""digital songs"/a as measured by paid downloads across genres. But this chart is arguably already losing relevance as more artists release their music digitally online for free./p pWhat do you think - can the 116-year old, mainstream company get its groove back in a time when most of the trends in music are in the direction of digital and underground? Are efforts like the Music App Awards smart - or doomed?/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/billboard_magazine_founded_in_1894_hustles_to_prov.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/1N8CRni-zs1vD-XHJmKf1-hK3fk/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/1N8CRni-zs1vD-XHJmKf1-hK3fk/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/1N8CRni-zs1vD-XHJmKf1-hK3fk/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/1N8CRni-zs1vD-XHJmKf1-hK3fk/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=EyR1HUxP-Tc:UyAx6zluA3s:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/EyR1HUxP-Tc" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="techpioneers.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/techpioneers.jpg" width="150" height="95" class="mt-image-none" style="" /As I a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/08/5-ways-tech-startups-can-disru.php"argued/a earlier this week, words like "disruptive," "innovative," and "transformational" can lose their punch when applied to every new company, every new product, every new feature. But there are undoubtedly plenty of areas in which innovation and transformation are not just happening and warranted, but absolutely crucial. /p pIt is with that in mind that each year the World Economic Forum selects a group of startups to honor as a href="http://www.forumblog.org/techpioneers/"Technology Pioneers/a. The WEF announced the recipients of the 2011 award today - 31 companies selected from over 300 nominations from 13 different countries./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21599amp;cb=21599' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21599amp;n=21599' border='0' alt='' //a/p div class="pullquote"Technology is clearly empowering people in all walks of society by giving them more information, more options, a bigger voice in the world around them and more control over their own health and their impact on the environment.br/ - World Economic Forum/div pThe startups selected are rated in terms of innovation, impact, growth, proof of concept, and leadership. Over 450 companies have been honored since the award began in 2000, and past winners include a href="http://www.twitter.com"Twitter/a and crisis mapping platform a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/"Ushahidi/a. /p pIn announcing today's winners, the World Economic Forum lauds the ways in which Internet technologies, particularly social networking, have shifted power and knowledge. "Technology is clearly empowering people in all walks of society by giving them more information, more options, a bigger voice in the world around them and more control over their own health and their impact on the environment. Technological advances that allow an unprecedented level of collaboration and cooperation in real time mean that acting on that information has never been easier."/p pMany of the startups address energy, environmental and health issues. But 13 of the 31 startups honored today fall into the categories of "information technologies and new media." They are:br / ulliba href="http://www.asterdata.com"Aster Data/a/b: Big data analytics/liliba href="http://www.atlassian.com"Atlassian/a/b: Collaboration tools/liliba href="http://www.foursquare.com"Foursquare/a/b: Location-based social networking/liliba href="http://www.getjar.com"GetJar/a/b: An independent marketplace for apps/liliba href="http://www.knewton.com"Knewton/b/a: Adaptive learning/liliba href="http://www.layar.com"Layar/a/b: Augmented reality/liliba href="http://www.netqin.com"NetQuin Mobile/b/a: Mobile security/liliba href="http://www.opendns.com"OpenDNS/a/b: Global DNS service/liliba href="http://www.reputationdefender.com"ReputationDefender/b/a: Control of personal information/liliba href="http://www.scribd.com"Scribd/a/b: Publishing/liliba href="http://www.secondmarket.com"SecondMarket/a/b: Financial marketplace/liliba href="http://www.spotify.com"Spotify/a/b: Digital music/liliba href="http://www.vortexindia.co.in"Vortex Engineering/a/b: Solar ATMs/li/ul/p pAn international non-profit, the World Economic Forum's motto is "entrepreneurship in the global public interest." Kudos to the companies honored today for doing just that./p pobject width="560" height="340"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fR2TTPNfjAE?fs=1amp;hl=en_US"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fR2TTPNfjAE?fs=1amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"/embed/object/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/09/world-economic-forum-honors-31.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/B79Epkjcm6gVui76pv9UPOJBALo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/B79Epkjcm6gVui76pv9UPOJBALo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/B79Epkjcm6gVui76pv9UPOJBALo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/B79Epkjcm6gVui76pv9UPOJBALo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=_aBjY4kvL90:ZtW6ON_FUas:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/_aBjY4kvL90" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="sept-calendar.png" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/sept-calendar.png" width="128" height="128" /Remember when you couldn't figure out where July went? Well, now it's September. /p pSummer is indeed coming to a close, but to help soften the blow, ReadWriteWeb has compiled a list of four essential technology conferences for small business owners and professionals coming up this month. These events are US-only, but if you know of any international events worth checking out, please leave a note in the comments. /p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21597amp;cb=21597' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21597amp;n=21597' border='0' alt='' //a/p p/p p/p p/p h2New York Times Small Business Summit/h2 pSponsored by American Express Open, the a href="http://nytsmallbusinessummit.com/" target="_blank"New York Times Small Business Summit/a promises to "explore the next steps of social media marketing and how best to navigate a new economic and legislative landscape."/p pSpeakers include reknowned social media guru Shiv Singh of PepsiCo, Jerry Greenfield of Ben Jerry's Ice Cream, Polyvore CEO and former Googler Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and David Liu, CEO of wedding media mini-empire The Knot, Inc, among others. The keynote speaker will be Robin Chase, CEO of ZipCar./p pWith a a href="http://nytsmallbusinessummit.com/speakers.php" target="_blank"speaker list/a like that and session titles like "How Innovation Drives Business in Challenging Times" and "Leveraging the Digital Space to Grow Your Business" this conference is sure to be loaded with valuable insight. /p pstrongWhen:/strong September 23, 2010 br / strongWhere:/strong The Hilton New York [a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=qsource=s_qhl=engeocode=q=1335+Avenue+of+the+Americas,+New+York,+NYsll=47.611346,-122.349363sspn=0.021786,0.038581ie=UTF8hq=hnear=1335+Avenue+of+the+Americas,+New+York,+10019ll=40.76239,-73.980024spn=0.012644,0.01929t=hz=16" target="_blank"MAP/a]br / strongCost:/strong $99br / stronga href="https://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Register/IdentityConfirmation.aspx?e=51062b2b-a523-4f34-a749-0b57a771feec" target="_blank"Register Here/a/strong /p h2BizTechDay/h2 pa href="http://www.biztechday.com" target="_blank"BizTechDay/a is bicoastal gathering of entreprenuers, business leaders, journalists and government representatives with the goal of providing "an intensive one-day experience where entrepreneurs meet to inspire and be inspired by each other."/p pThe conference, which will take place in both Seattle and New York City this month (with a third date in San Francisco next month), will feature a href="http://www.biztechday.com/2010-speakers/"an all-star roster/a of entreprenuers and big thinkers. Those attending the Seattle event can look forward to hearing Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh and Colleen McCreary from Zynga, Squidoo cofounder Megan Casey, among others. The New York event will feature authors Clay Shirky and Seth Godin, along with Meetup founder Scott Heiferman, Gymoree founder Joan Barnes and a host of others. /p pstrongWhen:/strong September 18, 2010br / strongWhere:/strong Seattle, WA - Bell Harbor Conference Center [a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=qsource=s_qhl=engeocode=q=bell+harbor+conference+center,+seattle,+wasll=40.737898,-74.218288sspn=0.391764,0.617294ie=UTF8hq=bell+harbor+conference+center,hnear=Seattle,+King,+Washingtont=hz=15iwloc=A" target="_blank"MAP/a]br / strongCost:/strong $395 regular, $795 VIPbr / stronga href="http://www.biztechday.com/register/" target="_blank"Register Here/a/strong/p pstrongWhen:/strong September 24, 2010 br / strongWhere:/strongNew York, NY - The Times Center [a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/googlemap?eid=745491786" target="_blank"MAP/a]br / strongCost:/strong $595 regular, $1,195 VIPbr / stronga href="http://www.biztechday.com/register/" target="_blank"Register Here/a/strong/p h2Small Business Technology Tour/h2 pMost of the a href="http://www.smallbiztechtour.com/" target="_blank"Small Business Technology Tour/a will take place across the United States in October and November, but it kicks off on Sept. 28 in Mountain View, CA. Hosted by a href="http://smallbiztechnology.com" target="_blank"smallbiztechnology.com/a, this traveling conference of business tech insight has a href="http://www.smallbiztechtour.com/speakers" target="_blank"an impressive line-up of small business technology experts/a and big name sponsors. /p pstrongWhen:/strong September 18, 2010br / strongWhere:/strongMountain View, CA - Computer History Museum [a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=qsource=s_qhl=engeocode=q=1401+N.+Shoreline+Blvd+mountain+view,+casll=37.0625,-95.677068sspn=53.564699,79.013672ie=UTF8hq=hnear=1401+N+Shoreline+Blvd,+Mountain+View,+Santa+Clara,+California+94043t=hz=17" target="_blank"MAP/a]br / strongCost:/strong $49 (subsequent dates will cost $99 if purchased after 9/21)br / stronga href="http://www.smallbiztechtour.com/mountain-view" target="_blank"Register Here/a/strong/p pemCheck out the a href="smallbiztechtour.com" target="_blank"conference's Website/a for more dates and locations in October and November./em/p h2New Marketing Experience/h2 pThe a href="http://nmlevents.com/chi/" target="_blank"New Marketing Experience/a conference is a one-stop-shop for expertise on all things related to social media, email and Web marketing. Organized by Chris Brogan and the team at a href="http://newmarketinglabs.com" target="_blank"New Marketing Labs/a, this conference features a veritable who's who of a href="http://event.nmlevents.com/chi/speakers.html" target="_blank"new media marketing experts/a./p pstrongWhen:/strong September 21, 2010br / strongWhere:/strongChicago, IL - Museum of Science and Industry [a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=qhl=engeocode=q=museumsll=41.780384,-87.603174sspn=0.039427,0.067635ie=UTF8ei=A8a2SPHRF43QjgGUpa2yAwcd=1cid=41791568,-87582932,1138333916404900614li=lmdll=41.791665,-87.582922spn=0.010335,0.016909z=16iwloc=A" target="_blank"MAP/a]br / strongCost:/strong $199br / stronga href="http://event.nmlevents.com/chi/register.html" target="_blank"Register Here/a/strong/p p/p pDo you know of any other tech-oriented conferences, events and webinars for small or medium-sized businesses? Let us know about them in the comments. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2010/09/4-must-attend-small-business-tech-conferences.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z-X2xbSgCM7aVPgMVMkzMoNdseQ/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z-X2xbSgCM7aVPgMVMkzMoNdseQ/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z-X2xbSgCM7aVPgMVMkzMoNdseQ/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Z-X2xbSgCM7aVPgMVMkzMoNdseQ/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=BcXCMcUB67w:7OEOPPIMRaE:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/BcXCMcUB67w" height="1" width="1"/

pimg alt="capsm.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/capsm.jpg" width="90" height="90" class="mt-image-none" style="" /A a href="http://cops2point0.com/2010/09/01/first-ever-police-on-twitter-report-now-available/"study/a of 1,089 official and unofficial law enforcement Twitter accounts shows about 21 percent don't tweet, nine percent tweet personal opinions about crime or criminal justice, and three percent have tweeted in a way that could be interpreted as racist or sexist. /p pFurthermore, the vast majority of agencies did not include legal disclaimers or refer to a social media policy on their Twitter accounts./p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/ck.php?n=21598amp;cb=21598' target='_blank'img src='http://d.ads.readwriteweb.com/avw.php?zoneid=14amp;cb=21598amp;n=21598' border='0' alt='' //a/p pimg alt="pdxcops.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/pdxcops.jpg" width="607" height="353" class="mt-image-center" style="text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;" /emThe official Twitter page for the Portland Police Bureau, a href="http://twitter.com/PortlandPolice"@PortlandPolice/a./em/p pThe study covered accounts in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, and concluded that there is no consensus for how police should conduct themselves on Twitter. It was conducted by the a href="http://cops2point0.com"Canadian Association of Police on Social Media/a, a group of police, academics and citizens that advocates the use of social media by police (check out this guest post by co-founder Laura Madison, a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_dark_figure_of_social_media_what_can_twitter_teach_criminologists.php"The Dark Figure Of Social Media: What Can Twitter Teach Criminologists?/a)./p p"The lack of legal disclaimers (e.g. "The opinions expressed here do not reflect those of my employer" or "This account is not monitored 24/7; please do not use it to report crimes") and social media policy (which may include disclaimers as well as purpose and other information) is of concern," the study's authors conclude./p pA disclaimer seems especially wise for police accounts given that a recent Red Cross report showed half of social media users believe emergency responders are monitoring social media (see our coverage: a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/74_of_social_media_users_expect_cries_for_help_to.php"74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to Be Answered Within an Hour/a)./p pJust one account had a link to a social media policy from Twitter - The New Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police in London, a href="http://twitter.com/metpoliceuk"@metpoliceuk/a. The a href="http://www.met.police.uk/webinfo/twitter_policy.htm"policy/a tells users to expect updates on the latest news stories from New Scotland Yard, alerts about items posted to Flickr and YouTube and "in the event of a major incident," information from the agency's website. It also explains who is behind the account, when it is monitored and even its followback policy. However, the account has yet to tweet./p pAlarmingly, the study also found that 15 police accounts tweeted sensitive legal information, such as clues that could identify suspects of victims of crimes. That's less than one percent, but police officers should know not to publicly broadcast information that could compromise ongoing investigations, inaccurately implicate someone who has not been proven guilty of a crime, or lead an at-large criminal to a victim./p pPolice tweeted mostly about missing persons, wanted suspects, traffic and safety, arrests and other on-duty activity. But agencies and officers seemed to have no strategy for Twitter use, the study concludes. /p pa href="http://twitter.com/canadianpolice"CAPSM/a recommends that police agencies use Twitter more and experiment with third-party and mobile applications. It also recommends that agencies clarify the way they plan to use Twitter and train their officers accordingly. /p pThe group also encourages police agencies to use Twitter to preempt brand hijacking via fake accounts, such as this one in Portland:/p pimg alt="pdxcopsfake.jpg" src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/pdxcopsfake.jpg" width="582" height="363" class="mt-image-center" style="text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;" //p p"That more police are using Twitter to connect with their communities is encouraging. However, they should take care not to use it only because it is popular or because the neighboring agency signed on. Instead, they must recognize it in the context of public communication at large: who uses it, how they use it, and where it can fit into various types of police operations," the study concludes./p pstrongUPDATE: /strongCAPSM contacted us to say that its main takeaway was that police are "doing quite well and learning a few things" and "the numbers supporting the quality of tweets are very encouraging. It means that more and more citizens are getting important real time safety news delivered right to them." /p pThere are agencies on Twitter who are using the medium effectively to communicate with the community and enhance their policing - the Portland Police Bureau, referenced above, is a good example - and we didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Rather, our takeaway was that the wide variation in the ways police use Twitter, the fact that some are not using it at all, the absence of clearly denoted social media policies, and the instances of misuse added up to an uncertainty about using the medium - which CAPSM's recommendations for a "best practices" approach would likely remedy. /p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cops_not_sure_how_to_use_twitter_study_shows.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HphruD8UQwvSrYboR4EmF1g0xM4/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HphruD8UQwvSrYboR4EmF1g0xM4/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HphruD8UQwvSrYboR4EmF1g0xM4/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/HphruD8UQwvSrYboR4EmF1g0xM4/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:FFnlKYwJmN0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=FFnlKYwJmN0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:Ij26kaj3iuU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=Ij26kaj3iuU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:C2pbw5bZMiI"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=C2pbw5bZMiI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?i=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?a=sBzjeTrUeYw:si2PwU1jpp4:OqabYuBsmOY"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/readwriteweb?d=OqabYuBsmOY" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/sBzjeTrUeYw" height="1" width="1"/