Startup Meme

Robo.to: Where you write a status once and its shared everywhere

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:37:54 +0000

Robo.to is a new service that lets you integrate popular services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr at one place and an update on your Robo.to is an update everywhere. Simply sign up for the service and update your status from one place or record a video and share it across the numerous networks. Simple and does its job pretty nicely.

Tags: roboto, startups

The Pirate Bay will make us $40 Million a month: Says its bidder

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:12:23 +0000

They have big plans, inflated bubbles associated to monetizing their acquisition; The Pirate Bay. Global Gaming Factory X’s CEO Hans Pandeya told Paid Content that he plans to make huge profits from TPB and he thinks those profits can well be around $40 Million…a month. How? Well Pandeya plans to monetize the file sharing service by selling user’ unused disk space to firms, the bandwidth to ISPs and he thinks that the ads on the site alone will make the proposed $40 Million a month. I am not sure how soon is this going to happen and how much of that money will be spent fighting lawsuits that The Pirate Bay is caught in more often than not.

Tags: finance, tpb

The Macs are safe from the Green Dam.. but that won’t last long I bet

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:20:55 +0000

The Green Dam, China’s attempts to block access to porn on the Web is definitely a big threat to user privacy. It has already been delayed for some reasons, especially those associated to shortcomings and its inability to work on 64- bit OS. This means it is not supported on the Macs, of course this lack isn’t something that will last forever and will soon have support for it as well. While it may sound offending or interfering with user privacy, many PC manufacturers have agreed to demands by the country, which means Macs will soon follow.

Tags: China, Green_Dam

Google changes layout: Faster page loads mean more revenue.. forget the smaller logo

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:54:46 +0000

Google’s new layout makes search fast, a smaller log, more space beneath the search box and removing the size of the pages that provided an idea on how long it will take to load one. The results are also indented meaning there is more white space on the sides. Well this isn’t some ground breaking redesign but it definitely means a lot to Google and its revenues. How? It means faster page load times, which in turn makes users happy to have results appear instantly and secondly the revenue it can generate with faster page loads. We will be interested to have user feedback on Google’s new look, is it fast enough?

Tags: google

Apple rejects Start Mobile’s app.. because it finds Obama’s Hope ‘Ridiculing Public Figures’

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:06:13 +0000

After having all their previous apps being approved by the App Store, Start Mobile meets rejection. And what exactly is the app that has been rejected? It’s not some porn stuff or an app that makes fart sounds, rather a piece of art having the picture of President Obama with the caption of Hope. Apple says it is found to ridicule public figures…. come again please? How is this picture doing anything of the sort when it more or less defines the change itself? I guess the filtering team at Apple has lost its brains or maybe the filtering is done by some dumb machine that is now infested with bugs. Anyone who has to share an opinion on this?

Tags: apple, Apps, iphone, Start_Mobile

Tweetmeme continues to improve itself

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:29:26 +0000

Tweetmeme is definitely making it big with being the tweet aggregator and more importantly its doing great with its re-tweet. Almost every site nowadays has the re-tweet button. According reports the same button pulls in more than 196 million impressions every week. The service plans to release more features which includes support for URL shortening and will also support custom URL shortening services as well. The improvements will also include analytics services for website owners, this would of course be the very basic of analytics and sits will have to pay for more detailed analysis. This would be helpful to help figure out what links are more popular.

Tags: Tweetmeme

Things getting better for Authorize.net after hours of outage

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:48:38 +0000

Yesterday it was Google App Engine that went down and today it’s Authorize.net that has gone down. The provider of payment gateway service has been down for more than 8 hours (almost). And those 8 hours means that thousands of sites are also affected, bringing a loss worth millions. We aren’t sure what has caused the issue but some threads state that it’s due to a fire in its Seattle datacenter causing the error. The site is up and running but some sites still remain affected and the team is trying its best to restore full access.

Tags: authorize.net, Reports

And now Search on FriendFeed is Real Time too

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:29:19 +0000

Real time is what almost every service is trying to integrate it in some way. However FriendFeed is running ahead with the idea and it all began with its redesign. Today it also put that real time-ness into its search, meaning that whatever term you search will show results that are updated with the latest updates associated to your search query. What’s more important is that you can also share and embed the search in your blog and it updates in real time as well. You can see one below:

Tags: FriendFeed, realtime

China: Green Dam is Inevitable, we only Postponed it

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:58:15 +0000

July 1st came and went, no walls were raised, no dams created and we thought that China had given up Green Dam, we were wrong. The government announced that they have only postponed the program for an indefinite period. This means you can enjoy PCs that don’t come fed with what Web sites to block when you buy them as had been proposed by officials in China. However many PC manufacturer, which include Acer, Haier and Benq have accepted the proposal and will build PCs that have Green Dam with the systems. Sooner or later, it’s going to be there filtering content automatically. Is there any John Connor to rise above the Green Dam and actually save it from happening?

Tags: China, Green_Dam

Evite into Re-org, lays off 9 employees

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:23:53 +0000

We have talked about Evite quite often, today the service announced laying off 9 members of its 38 employees. Along with the layoffs the firm also announced a reorg as it named Hans Woolley, co-founder Pronto as its President. Amongst those laid off are its GM, Rosanna McCollough and VP of Marketing Lariayn Payne.

Tags: evite, layoffs

Google App Engine down for hours now

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:57:24 +0000

It’s been almost five hours since Google App Engine has taken a fall and it quite explains that the issue is a major one. A Google employee has initially stated that the App Engine was going through problems and it is now in an unplanned maintenance mode. While 5 hours is definitely a long period but given that the App Engine is the driving force behind the countless startups. Now we know that the people at Google are trying to get it working real soon but they need to push harder.

Tags: google

Bling Nation raises $8 Million

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:36:08 +0000

Bling Nation the company that lets you purchase real items in stores by letting you pay via your cell phones has raised $8 Million in a new round. The round came from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Camp Ventures. The payment model works by using an RFID tags attached to their cell phones and is activated much like you activate an ATM. The readers for these tags are also provided to the merchants and once the devices are activated the user can confirm the purchase. With that done an SMS is sent as confirmation and a receipt for your purchase. The idea is pretty nice and takes the burden off the ever problematic credit card system.

Tags: Bling_Nation, funding

Gizmodo and Engadget bring everything about Gadgets to Gdgt

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:52:30 +0000

Gizmodo and Engadget have joined hands to launch their very own gadget site, Gdgt. The plans to bring this had been voiced for almost a year but its founders Peter Rojas (fonder/editor of Gizmodo) and Ryan Block (editor of Engadget) have finally put the plans to reality. The site is more like a gadget community where visitors can discuss anything that is associated to gadgets. This might seem like an extended version of the gadget blogs but it’s more organized. The site has everything to offer for tech geeks and they can become a part part of it by creating profiles just like they do on the numerous social networks out there.

Tags: blogs, Social_Networks, tech

YouTube now lets you upload up to 2GB files, lets you link and embed HDs directly

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:23:21 +0000

YouTube has extended that video upload size from 1GB to 2GB making it easier to up load bigger HD videos by users. Along with that you can also link an HD directly as well as embed the same. Although this could be done already but users had to take a turn around method, the update makes that easier and direct. However when it comes to linking the HD users still have to make an effort and add &hd=1 at the end of the video’s link. If you have got those HD’s that had been waiting to be uploaded on YouTube, now is the time you begin sharing them with the web.

Tags: youtube

Microsoft’s Bing putting Tweets in Search Results.. talk about real-time-ness coming to search

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:11:13 +0000

Microsoft is definitely enjoying Bing, publicity, positive feedback and now it puts in Twitter results. Let me be more specific, the search now includes Tweets in results, meaning there is some sort of real time-ness coming to it. The feature is not out fully but Microsoft is testing it with a few Twitterers presently and search results will be updated every minute. However Microsoft is quite sanely not taking the task to crawl past every Tweet sent and will focus only on accounts that are considered important.

Tags: business, microsoft, search

MySpace is done with layoffs for now.. changes Logo

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:51:38 +0000

It had to happen, changes I mean, ever since MySpace lost its battle with Facebook to be the leading social network. First layoffs and now the change in its logo. From being a place for friends it is now simply MySpace and expect nothing more. I find it utterly useless to do so or wait maybe they fired the person who was gaga about MySpace being a place for friends, though it could have been useful had they changed the logo and not laid off employees in numbers. Reports also state that MySpace will be shedding weight on the site as well by removing the big ad units that decorate the entire page.

Tags: myspace, Social_Networks

The New Facebook App for the iPhone will be loaded with more features

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:20:24 +0000

Apart from putting updates on the Privacy settings, Facebook is working on improving its iPhone App with the addition of numerous features. Though the new loaded app isn’t out as yet and we aren’t sure when exactly is it coming out but developer Joe Hewitt states that its almost ready. Some of the new features include:

Create new albums
Upload photo to any album
Notes
Pages
Improved notifications
Easy tagging of photos

Those are but just a few of more than a dozen feature improvements. You can read about them here.

Tags: Apps, facebook, iphone

Create Websites easily with Moogo

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:25:03 +0000

If you are looking for an easy way to build websites Moogo has expanded its service from Finland to everyone around the world. You don’t need to be an expert with creating a website to create one with Moogo. The sites you create with it are easy to update and is really helpful for individuals who have a;ways wanted to have a site of their own. You can try the service for free and if you find it useful enough, simply confirm your order by paying for if you don’t your site will be pulled off. A pretty easy to use service for all the novices out there.

Tags: moogo, websites

5 Million downloads in 24 Hours for Firefox 3.5

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:57:46 +0000

We talked about Firefox 3.5 getting past a million downloads in just a couple of hours of its release and thought it might break the record set by Firefox 3.0. Well that hasn’t happened and Firefox 3.5 was downloaded more than 5 Million times in 24 hours. This isn’t a small feat and with these downloads estimates state that the latest version has already got a 2.4% share in the browser market and al its version are just a fraction shy of 30% share behind IE’s 63% and ahead of Chrome’s 3.17%.

Tags: Browsers, Firefox

Cognitive Match raises funds in Series A

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:26:30 +0000

Cognitive Match that matches users with content in real time has scored a guessed £1 Million as reports state. The round was provided by Dawn Capital and Cognitive Match will use the funds to boost the development of their product. The company uses artificial intelligence, semantics and mathematics to do so in real time. The content can be products, etc and helps maximize profits and is already providing the same to many industries.

Tags: cognitive_match, funding

Gmail gets drag and drop and other features

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:51:22 +0000

More features keep making way to Gmail every now and then. The latest coming in are the Labels features to bring more functionality. First up the labels have been located just above your chat interface as well as letting you decide what labels should be visible there or not. However the drag and drop option to put messages into labels is more than useful. This is going to satisfy al those who had issues with Gmail not having the features for quite a long time.

Tags: Gmail

MojoPages bags $5 Million in Series A

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:08:04 +0000

MojoPages which provides local search engine technology to media firms has raised $5 Million in its Series A round of funding. The round was led by Austin ventures. The company will use these funds to improve its search capabilities and compete with Yelp and CitySearch and transform itself into a review and listing aggregator.

Tags: funding, mojopages

StyleCaster raises $4 Million in Series A

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:49:16 +0000

Fashion platform, StyleCaster has raised $4 Million in Series A for its fashion community. The round was provided investor Dan Gilbert who is founder and chairman of Quicken Loans. StyleCaster will use the funds to improve content and develop mobile and web based apps as well as boost advertising.

Tags: funding, stylecaster

Dial Directions acquired by Sakhr Software to bring Real Time Voice Translation to mobiles

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:41:11 +0000

Voice activated mobile service Dial Directions that provides directions to cell phone users has been acquired by Sakhr Software. The software provides natural language processing in Arabic and the two will work together to bring real time translation to the mobile devices. With this users will simply have to say a phrase and the app would automatically provide the with its translation in text and in voice. The two have already rolled out apps for both the iPhone and the BlackBerry and will be released soon after it has been tested.

Tags: Apps, iphone, mobile

Twitter makes changes to its interface: Easier to connect with Tweeples

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:10:48 +0000

Twitter is working on to improve its User Interface, something i for one had always desired. Though it isn’t an entire overhaul of the site’s layout but it has made the followers and following page more interactive and easier. This makes it easier for one to follow, unfollow, block or simply send a reply to someone. That is added with letting you view your followers and those you are following in a list view or as expanded. Overall it appears much pleasant than the other wise simple but sickening layout it previously had. I appreciate this change anticipating that some bigger changes in the layout are about to make way.

Tags: Twitter

MySpace continues to lose execs: SVP Engineering Allen Hurf calls it quits

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:49:36 +0000

There has been quite a stir in both Yahoo and MySpace with layoffs and execs calling it quits. Over the weekend another one of MySpace’s execs, its SVP Engineering Allen Hurf made his exit. That wasn’t a call from MySpace but the Hurf seeing the condition at MySpace decided to pack his stuff before he was asked to do so. We aren’t sure why exactly he left the job he had been working at for more than four years but his own tweet states that he might be looking to begin something of his own.

Tags: myspace

President Obama you should let the Duck Quack

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:22:32 +0000

Cell phones can be a real nuisance as well as a source of great embarrassment if you have got some whacky ringtone and your phone rings where its not supposed to. A similar incident happened during the speech given by Obama that was interrupted by a reporter’s phone ringing. What’s funny/embarrassing about it? The reporter had set a quacking duck as a ringtone (the YouTube video is about that). To be honest I found that funny and even funnier were the prompt remarks from the President himself who asked where do guys get such ringtones from? While others would pretend to be pretty stiff about the incident I think incidents such as these make us realize that funny things do happen amidst all the seriousness.

Tags: fun, youtube

Firefox 3.5 goes past 1 Million downloads

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:29:22 +0000

Just couple hours after its release and Firefox 3.5 is already crossed one million downloads. You can keep track of the number of downloads in real time here. Most of the downloads have been made in the U.S with almost 300,000 followed by Germany with almost 150,000 downloads. I mean this could very well break the 8 Million download record that Firefox 3.0 set last year?

Tags: Firefox

Adobe shuts down service in North America… to cut costs

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:07:51 +0000

What’s the better way for a firm to cut its cost? Lay off employees, wreck their lives or follow Adobe. The makers of Flash player that is used throw out the web to play video clips has decided to cease operations in North America to cut back on costs for a week. I am quite surprised why Adobe had to make such a move as it already powers quite a lot of desktop apps apart from Flash and by al means is profitable. This shut down is one of the three planned for the current year with the first already taking place in April.

Tags: Adobe

Sense Network scores $6 Million in Series B

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:44:23 +0000

Sense Networks, a startup founded by MIT computer scientist, Alex Pentland and Columbia computer scientist, Tony Jebara has raised a healthy $6 Million in Series B round of funding. The startup works on by collecting data on people’s location via their cell phones, GPS, cameras, etc. On the same methodology it has developed Citysense, a mobile app for the Blackberry devices which shows real time heat map of popular spots like clubs, etc and is based on the amount of people that are actually there. The round was led by Intel Capital.

Tags: funding, sense_networks

Dell is working on an Android based device.. Not a Cell Phone though

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:54:44 +0000

There is a new Android based device set to make its way in the market and its coming from Dell as reports state. That device is however not a mobile handset and will be slightly bigger than the iPhone. And the reason why Dell is going for Android is obviously that its powerful and free. Although there has been no official word on the device from Dell, people state that the device will be available by the second half of this year. Dell has been working upon the device and had appointed exec Ain McKendrick to be in charge of its mobile Internet devices. Lets see what exactly is the device like and how it does in the market.

Tags: Android, Dell

High Gear media raises $5.5 Million for its Auto News Aggregator site

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:30:35 +0000

High Gear Media, the Car news and reviews site network has raised $5.5 Million in its second round of funding. The round was led by DAG ventures along with participation from existing Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. The money will be used to further improve its services and increase its collection of 38 websites related to autos.

Tags: funding, high_gear_media

Google Image Search Plus Microsoft Office is OffiSync 2.0: That’s exactly how easy it is to work with Office

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:47:51 +0000

We talked about OffiSync, a plugin that integrates Google Docs with Microsoft Office and it has been doing pretty well ever since. Presently the plugin got a latest addition is the coming of text and image search. To say that this is just useful will be undermining what its actually worth and a person who desired more from Office’s already integrated Clip Art would truly appreciate it. With this you can perform searches for images on Google Image Search without needing to open up your browser. You can perform custom search to find exactly what you are looking for and once you have found you have the right image. simply hit insert and your image appears where your cursor is. That added with the integrated browser lets you navigate to a page that you would like to be quoted in your document, highlight the text and insert. The tools offers a lot that too without a cost and helps bring your Office on the Desktop closer to Google Docs on the cloud.

Tags: google, microsoft, offisync, plugins

The Pirate Bay acquired by Swedish Software firm for $7.7 Million

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:47:30 +0000

The Pirate Bay after all the brouhaha that had been created around it for quite some time has been acquired by Global Gaming Factory X. The Swedish Software firm acquired the file sharing service for figure close to $7.7 Million and will complete the transaction by August this year. I am sure that the acquisition is not going to create any problems for the file sharing service in any manner as it’s driving force behind the site’s success and with new people coming in the site will have the necessary muscle to continue its drive towards success.

Tags: acquisition, tpb

China, another Ban to strike the Web and this time its on the use of Virtual Currency

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:34:52 +0000

China continues to strike the online world with its policies in the homeland. It banned access to various Web services like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc and now it makes a move towards virtual currency as it bans people from using it to buy real goods. Virtual Currency has become quite essential in the Web-sphere from buying gifts on social networks to purchasing gaming cards and its pretty popular. However analysts in China have supported the ban stating that the growing use of virtual currency may very well have a negative impact on the ever strengthening economy of the country.

[image with thanks]

Tags: Ban, China, Reports

Mobiles will soon have a Universal Charger

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:15:17 +0000

A new handset, a new charger that will only work with that particular device. Sounds an awful waste when things could have been better with one universal charger. While that has taken some time, but manufacturers of as many as ten mobile devices have agreed on the request from the European Commission to create universal battery chargers. While this presently applies to the member EU states, but does technology has boundaries, especially one that benefits almost everyone? No, obviously. The Universal charger will have a micro-USB connector, meaning that it will support all phones that support USB data transfer. This will most probably be made applicable from next year onwards on the said manufacturers.

Tags: mobile

Facebook: Another Scam on the loose.. surprising why Twitter and Facebook fall prey to such simultaneously (almost)

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:40:03 +0000

Attention Facebook users, you are prone to another scam on your favorite social network. Reports state that a new scam comes in mail from Junfunrun[dot]com and Bulitre[dot]com. Like always you get them coming to your Facebook inbox and are meant to steal your Facebook login details so it would be further spread. First up, don’t click on any links and never enter your credentials on a site unless you are sure its trustworthy and in case you have fallen prey to it, simply change your password. This adds to the countless efforts already been made especially on Facebook and Twitter in the recent past and most surprisingly scams efforts are almost simultaneous at both services, anyone noticed that?

Tags: facebook, phishing

Steve Jobs back at work.. Apple making sure everyone knows this

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:18:02 +0000

When Steve Jobs took a medical leave earlier this year he had stated about his return to work by June 30. Reports broke forth earlier this month stating that Jobs had a liver transplant and that he was working at Apple, though he did most of the work from home. However there is a sudden surge on news about Steve Jobs back at work as Apple nails messages regarding his return to various news sources including the New York Times, Reuters to Bloomberg. Many had anticipated Apple’s stocks to take a plunge as he took the leave but that hasn’t been the case so far, pulling down the image of Apple being solely dependant on Steve Jobs. The rise in stocks (which have gone up by 82%) stand a witness that Apple’s power lies in its products and not just a single man.

Tags: apple, Steve_Jobs

Ifbyphone launches Virtual Call Center Service: Call Distributor

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:45:48 +0000

Ifbyphone today made another major announcement as they launched their new service, the Call Distributor. The service would enable small and medium sized business an easy way to build their own call centers. This would include all the technical facilities found in call centers but removing the need to spend on finding equipment or software. The virtual center would enable access from any where and from any phone. The Call Distributor includes the following capabilities:

Agents are defined as available based on a schedule, a web interface or via a phone call from any phone.
Complete queue size and wait time control;
Support for customer-supplied audio prompts, queue messages and music on hold;
Callers may choose to leave a queue at any time and are routed to voice mail or an IVR application according to a web-based configuration;
A complete web-based agent dashboard with call notification which includes reverse lookups, integration with Salesforce.com and customer data options;
A sophisticated, web-based management dashboard, which displays agent status, call statistics, calls in queue and supports the transmission of messages to agents.

Tags: Ifbyphone

David Ebersman takes reigns as Facebook’s CFO

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:54:37 +0000

Here comes a new CFO at Facebook, as the social network names David Ebersman to take the position. David had been a former CFO at Genentech and will take place of Gideon Yu, who was relieved off his duties almost three months back. With more than decade and a half of experience, David comes equipped with all the skills to boost Facebook’s ever expanding empire.

Tags: facebook, social_network

NewsPapers/publishers invited to share videos on YouTube: Google

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:16:13 +0000

Google is making moves to make itself the leading source of everything, from information, videos to news. Presently the search giant is inviting publishers to upload their video content at YouTube. YouTube news manager, Olivia Ma says anyone who has their site indexed at Google can register as a news partner. These videos will be featured at YouTube’s news channel, like wise the advantage with doing so will be that publishers will be able to share revenue generated via the videos, unlike how things happen at Google News. Whatever the case be and no matter how big a reach that YouTube has, it will take quite some time before publishers actually start migrating from the platforms they usually use like Brightcove, etc. Especially given the fact that they are allowed to sell their own ads at the same time expanding their reach to various other networks. However the attempt by Google is definitely worth a mention as it continues to focus more on professional content.

Tags: google, youtube

The X-illionth URL Shortening service: LNK.LY

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:12:49 +0000

LNK.LY is a new URL shortener. That’s it, I don’t want to extend this description anymore save that like quite a many out there it also keeps track on the URL you have shortened and shared. Drag its bookmark button to your browser so that you can simply hit the button and generate the short URL of any page you are on or take a longer and more tiring route of copy/pasting the URL on the Homepage and then shortening it. You can even keep a track on the number of hits the shortened URL has received as well.

Tags: lnk.ly, url_shortener

Google brings Search and Trade to Mobiles in Africa through SMS

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:57:21 +0000

The biggest problem faced with bringing everything to the web is that not everyone in the world has access to it. However if things got a bit more simple and marketing could come to the plainest of cell phones that provide the very basic services like text messaging and voice calls the reach can be expanded. Coming over to Google which has most definitely put all the information on the web just a search away, it could go further if it were to capitalize on building up on the cheap cell phone market and provide access to those in the developing nations. Google is set to launch multiple services in Africa associated to SMS which include search via Text messages and a marketplace based on the SMS. Its quite easy to work with, simply enter a a search query and you are responded with results via a text message. You can of course refine your search with keywords. However the Google Trader app appears to be more useful as it lets you post for numerous items on sale or search for a job, all that by using the vary basic SMS feature.

Tags: google, mobile

OMG!! Is it true what they wrote about you in their Twit Blog? — YES! Its a Phishing Scam!

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:37:08 +0000

Good morning Monday and Hello to a new scam and its Twitter where all the phishing is being done. Be warned that scammers are throwing in the baits that read omg!! is it true what they wrote about you in their twit blog? and a link to a Twitter blog. Don’t be fooled by the appearance which is exactly that of Twitter and provide your username and password. While many would think that this is very easy to point and neglect, but it has been spreading like wildfire as some trigger happy users have fallen prey to it. One advice as always, no matter who sends you a link, just be careful and assure it’s not suspicious, whatsoever.

Tags: phishing, Twitter

Add Twitter conversations to your site with Twitterboard

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:16:01 +0000

Twitter has become the need of an hour, or should I say of every instant as we see conversations building up around topics at the micromessaging service. Twitterboard is a startup that lets you bring all those conversations as a forum on your site. All that you have to do is simply add the code to their site. Every time a a person visits your site and feels like becoming a part of a conversation, they can log in with their Twitter credentials. While you can be a part of a discussion a Twitter itself, the problem there is that you are dealing with a very large audience and the @replies simply make things difficult to follow. With Twitterboard you are able to keep track with relevant discussion, much like you do on FriendFeed and Facebook.

Tags: startups, Twitter, twitterboard

Microsoft eager to sell Razorfish

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:15:07 +0000

Microsoft has finally decided to sell off its interactive ad portal, Razorfish. Reports state that its current worth is in the range of $600 Million to $700 Million. WPP Groupe had shown interest in acquiring it for as much as $800 Million but eventually took a bow when recession hit the economic market, however it is possible that the same group may acquire it but probably at a lower price than it had offered. Let’s see what price is fetched for the ad firm and who actually throws the bid for its acquisition.

Tags: finance, microsoft, razorfish

Swoopo comes to Canada

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:57:16 +0000

Online auction site that lets users hunt for bargains has expanded its business as it launched its portal in Canada. Along with that its adding a buy it now option to its German portal. The option would enable users to make direct purchases for the products for their normal market value. Though the initial working of the site can bring in a very expensive item at a very low price but that also involves bidders losing the 75 cents they use to buy bids, which often don’t prove lucky enough. The startup is pretty useful as it already has more than 2 million users.

Tags: online_shopping, Swoopo

FiredNetwork: The business Network that’s all about Information Resources on the Web

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:17:39 +0000

Almost everyone on the Internet is looking for some sort of information, be it stock rates or simply learning what your friend is up to on a certain social network. The same goes for those in business and professions, they all require a resource for information and FiredNetwork is just the right place for them. The startup boasts of having more than 1,500 such resources that range from head hunting firms to graduate test prep courses. Since its a community based startup, it therefore depends on the members to add up more resources, be it a book or a website, etc. This helps in many ways, from sharing information to adding more to your PR on the Web. So if you are one of those folks looking forward to getting some useful information, FiredNetwork is just a click away to provide you with all that.

Tags: FiredNetwork, social_network, startups

Nokeena grabs $6.5 Million in second round of funding

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:01:46 +0000

Nokeena the online video infrastructure firm has raised $6.5 Million in its second round of funding. This adds to the $8.7 Million it raised earlier, bringing its total funds to $15.2 Million. The current round was led by Mayfield Fund along with participation from its existing members. It’s primary product is the Media Flow Director that helps better the quality of video streaming as well as lowering the costs.

Tags: funding, nokeena

If its Fonts you are looking for, FFont has them all

Sardar Mohkim Khan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:58:34 +0000

If you have got tired of the fonts you have and need new ones for a change then FFont is the place where you can get a countless to suit your taste. FFont offers thousands of fonts that can be used by casual users or by professionals alike. The site has all fonts are put into various categories and provides a neat overview for each so that you know exactly what you will be using once the font has been downloaded.

Tags: ffont, startups

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