In today’s headlines: OECD internet meet fails, cops targeted by hackers, TV viewers shift to online, Google Analytics includes social media impact, arrogance behind MySpace fall, literary agents turn publishers, Forusquare hack turns NYC into game of Risk, Twitter launches developer site, Klout-type scoring for developers and great social media inspiration and how-tos!
Future / Politics
Paris power play feels like deja vu all over again
OECD gathers in Paris to talk about the future of the Internet a month after the G8 did the same. Despite desperate efforts to distance themselves from the much criticized G8 meet, the OECD end result is much the same: Wooing over how to protect copyright. GigaOm ponders if we shouldn’t move beyond that. It’s a very good post. Go read!
AntiSec Slams Arizona Cops (Again) with Super Personal Data Spill
Hacker group Anonymous targets Arizona police in retaliation. While this is a fairly isolated attack on police, it might have serious implications for the future. What if investigations into corruption, fraud and other crimes also brings with it a serious threat to investigators to get hacked and all personal information spilled online, including credit card numbers and other sensitive data? This is something authorities should look into. More at Gizmodo.
Business
Yahoo Study Shows Online Video Watching Shifting To Primetime
The TV industry will be the next big media industry to be shaken up. Not the production companies. People love good TV series, but they definitely does not need to be broadcasted on a specific time and day. Previously we have seen that people consume shorter videos on the internet and shut down the computer during primetime to watch TV. In the Yahoo study, long formats and viewing during primetime are sharply on the rise. And, remember that the US have quite crappy bandwidth to high costs. The shift in Europe and Asia could therefore be very fast. More at TechCrunch.
Remembering the Arrogance of MySpace
A good post illustrating how the mighty falls. It could also be the story of Blockbuster and Nokia. MySpace was sold yesterday for USD 35 M, a huge fall from the 580 million NewsCorp payed in 2005. More at Readwriteweb.
Open Road To Publish Literary-Agency-Turned-E-Publisher’s Books In The U.S.
Book publishers not only are threaten by self-publishing authors who can make far more money publishing ebooks on Amazon than a small part of the profit a book deal gets them. Now the literary agents jumps into the fray, releasing their client’s backlog as ebooks and becoming publishers in their own right. In the digital game, they got the talent and the media contacts, and the need for print distribution is shrinking fast. More at PaidContent.
Social Media
Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools Now Track the Impact of Tweets, Likes and +1s
Slowly, the overall strategy of Google+ is emerging from the engineering shadows. However, Google is a fair player and adds all the big networks different ways of showing appreciation for good content. And they must. Search is getting broken thanks to spam and perhaps, simply too much content. Social recommendations is an excellent way of boosting good content while burying the spam. More at Mashable!
Twitter to launch site for platform developers
A huge part of Twitter’s early success was due to the support they got from 3rd party devs. Twitter simply had more apps and simple integration than competing serivces like Jaiku and Plurk. During the last year, Twitter dealt blow after blow to independent developers by first buying Tweetie and making a native mobile Twitter app, then buying TweetDeck to presumably – we haven’t seen the results yet – do the same in the desktop space. Launching a site for developers is a smart way of saying ‘yes, we still do care’. More at GigaOm.
Clever Foursquare Hack Turns New York City Into a Giant Game of Risk
Fun! “World of Fourcraft” uses Foursquare and Google Maps APIs to turn New York City into a giant game of Risk. Users decide which team they are on by swearing allegiance to one of New York City’s five boroughs. Checking into a neighborhood on Foursquare is the online game’s equivalent to placing plastic man on a country in the board game. An algorithm decides who owns each neighborhood using the number of people who have checked into it on each team. There are currently about 100 players.
“We wanted to make foursquare more compelling for long-term use,” says Ricky Robinett, one member of the seven-person team that created the game during a weekend hackathon at New York’s General Assembly.
World of Fourcraft is part of a strong trend of building businesses and services on top of existing API’s. How do you extend your influence and business?
Imagine a Klout Score for Developers: Meet Work for Pie
Startup Work for Pie has come up with a simple way to showcase your involvement in the hacker community and open-source projects. Instead of measuring Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn scores like Klout, Work for Pie ranks your contributions to Hacker News, StackOverflow, Github, Bitbucket and other dev-centric communities. If you contribute a lot, a good rank could show employers and clients that you are someone to take seriously. More at Mashable!
Social Media How-Tos
The Noob Guide to Online Marketing (With Giant INFOGRAPHIC)
Massive and daunting, this post however is a huge , giant checklist of how to do online marketing. Read and learn! More at The Daily SEO Blog.
Check In on Foursquare or Facebook for Late Checkouts at Select Radisson Hotels
Many companies ponder on how to make social media useful for customers. I think this idea – rewarding guest who check in (and thus endorse the hotel to their followers) – with the small gift of a late check out is great. It’s low cost ffor the hotel but gives great value to guest. More at Mashable!
Technology
7 Innovative Ways the iPad Is Used in Retail
Are you running retail stores or restaurants? Kiosks, pre-flight entertainment, customization and more. Have a look at this post which might help you move your store into the 21st Century. More at Mashable!
Beauty and misery: Free Fotopedia North Korea app is an incredible look inside the Hermit Kingdom
I have a current fascination for North Korea and this buys straight into it. Photographer Eric Lafforgue traveled to North Korea four times between 2008 and 2010, shooting images of everything that he could, playing a ‘cat and mouse’ game with his supervisors. In doing so, he captured absolutely gorgeous images of one of the least photographed populous countries in the world. It’s a huge amount of images so go watch. But also look at this recent footage that makes you want to cry badly and that might be the start of the end for dictator Kim Jong-il. Full post at The Next Web.
