This is our place to give you updated hosting, development and web designer news, happenings on the website, and frivolous information about the internet.
The Nerds' gang: Brian Franklin - Gamer and master model (so he thinks) David Walsh - Editor with a penchant for hosting (and likes using big words) Preeti Pradhan- Blogger, writer, and social media chick (the brains behind it all)
Yesterday Google launched Google Buzz firehose, a key data stream coming out of Buzz that gives developers access to content as it’s published via a single feed with real-time PubSubHubBub syndication.
The announcement of firehose was posted on the official blog and stated this was their most-requested feature from developers. Also mentioned was the not so useful Buzz Mood, an app that scans Buzz updates for emotion-related verbs and creates slide-like animations for the viewer.
Access to the Buzz firehose appears to be free. Real-time search engines like OneRiot and Collecta are listed among the first subscribers, and more information about how to implement the firehose can be found here.
Google Buzz might not be the biggest source of currently available social data so I think the company is hoping the addition of firehose to a wider mix of real-time social update data can help expand and refine and application’s results. Google is also releasing a few new API features today; users’ comments, users’ links and share counts will now be available via their respective feeds.
Are you impressed with the new features? Will it make you more likely to use Google Buzz?
This week Hostway announced pre-registration for the .co domain names. General availability for .co domain names will start on the 20th of July. To avoid the rush businesses are urged to pre-register and protect their brands online interest.
Thomas Herbert, a product manager at Hostway states, “The .co domain extension has until now been the country domain name for Colombia, but it is now being opened up to businesses and individuals across the globe, without restrictions. For businesses this creates an opportunity as .co is globally recognizable and credible, in a very similar way to .com has been. In fact, terms such as ‘company’ and ‘corporation’ are widely associated with .co, making it a natural domain name for many businesses.”
Recent research carried out by Penn, Schon and Berland, a global market research firm, has shown most people associate .co with “company” or “corporation” making it easy to remember and attractive to businesses. Since this a newly available domain name Hostingway is encouraging brands to secure their web presence and not leave it open to cyber squatters.
Businesses and consumers can pre-register for their chosen .co domain names by visiting the following web page. The cost of a .co name during the General Availability Pre-registration period is US$39.
This week brought an announcement from Microsoft that confirms once again that Social Media is here to stay, Outlook will be integrated with Facebook and Windows Live Messenger. Since last years announcement that Outlook was integrating with LinkedIn users had been waiting for the integration to continue.
What does this mean for you? Well, say your email is from someone who is also on Facebook, their data will appear in your inbox , allowing you to see the persons profile, connect a face with a name and see their status updates.
What this means for business is even more information collected about networks and activities. Seeing what your client is doing through their status updates could be the edge needed against competition.
For more information check out Microsoft’s video explaining Outlooks new features.
Sex.com has made the news again, this time because it’s on the market. First listed as part of a foreclosure auction at Maltz Auctions, it was recently pulled to be sold separately, apparently in an effort to not devalue the domain name.
Entrepreneur Gary Kremen, a man also linked to match.com, first registered the domain name in 1994. Soon after, Kremen realized that he had lost ownership of the domain; a con man named Stephen Cohen had forged documents and stolen it. The site was reportedly getting 25 million hits a day and generating between $50,000 to $500,000 per month from the advertising, just not for Kreman.
In 1995 Kremen undertook the most expensive battle in dotcom history. Sex.com became the focus of a highly publicized legal battle about domain name ownership and the case inspired not one but two books. It also established the public value of a domain name as property in the eyes of the court, something we may take for granted now.
Sex.com made the news again in 2006 when it was reportedly sold for $14 million, making it the most expensive domain name ever. With all the internet buzz about the domain I am sure there will be some high bids when it is finally up for grabs this Summer.
The Webby Awards recently honored the best of the web. Behind the scenes there was some more competition, this time between Dan (the drummer) of OK Go and Animal from the Muppets. Pretty funny stuff!
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Competition. This weeks photo caption winner was Steve with this caption “John’s attempt to get as close to the World Cup action as possible may be a little over the line.” You can also join us on Facebook for future competitions
Hard to believe but it’s already July and almost time for HostingCon 2010. Austin, Texas will be buzzing from July 19-21 with full days of exhibits and speakers. This years conference is focused on “Piloting Into the Cloud – Setting a Course for the Future” with lots of information about how the web hosting industry will be effected.
Keynote speakers are Lydia Leong (Gartner) – Trends emerging across the Internet infrastructure services industry (it isn’t just the “cloud”.), Andy Rhodes (Dell) – Total cost of ownership for a scalable infrastructure and Serguei Beloussov (Parallels) – A NEW vision with hosts on how to launch new services, improve existing services, and reduce churn in their businesses..
New speakers at the conference include thought-leaders from HP, Cisco, VMWare, Gartner, Dell, Digital Realty Trust, The United States Defense Information Systems Agency, and many more. Highlights include speakers Douglas Hanna (A Small Orange), Michele Martin (Green Geeks) and Micheal Joffe (Microsoft).
To see the schedule and speaker bios go to their Website. HostingCon is also on Twitter, Facebookand LinkedIn so you can interact with those attending.
This is the sixth year of HostingCon and they are expecting over 1,500 people from over 30 different countries. Expect to see the latest news, ideas and technology presented, as well as lots of opportunities to mingle and network. Hope to see you there!
Apple announced their new iteration for the popular iPhone smart device, the iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010 on 7th June and now the new mobile device is available for pre-order around the globe. The device features tons of new enhancements making it one of the most appealing smartphones available in the market today.
The iPhone 4 can now be pre-ordered from Apple’s website at $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model with a 2-year AT&T contract. Whereas the iPhone 3GS 8GB is moved back to $99 price slot. The unlocked smartphone is available for a starting price of £499 in UK and €629 in France.
The new features incorporated in iPhone 4 include FaceTime which enables video calling over Wi-Fi network. Both the front facing camera and the high-resolution backside camera can be used for video calling. The device comes with Retinal Display technology with 960×640 screen resolution at 326dpi to provide crisp image quality while the IPS technology improves viewing angles.
The iPhone 4 is powered by the same Apple A4 chip that is used in iPad tablets. This makes the iPhone 4 dramatically faster than previous devices while conserving battery life. Other notable features include stainless steel band, gyroscope, 5MP camera with LED flash supporting 720p video recording and dual-mic to enhance voice quality. Check out the complete list of new features here.
