Thursday, January 13, 2011

19 new stories on The Next Web today

19 new stories on The Next Web today

Link to The Next Web

Kodak’s new 3D printer sounds great but will it sell?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:42 AM PST

Kodak announced its new product at this years CES conference, a new printer in the Spring that will allow people to print their own 3D images and photos, bringing your otherwise boring family snaps to life.

The feature, which is yet to be named, will be added to Kodak’s ESP C310 model and will likely retail for around $100 when it launched in the Spring. It will ship with two sets of paper 3D glasses, allowing those close to the printer to enjoy the 3D beauty of your photographs.

The 3D making process isn’t easy however, users are required to manually capture two photos of the same subject, one slightly off from the other. According to Kodak, you will need to offset the second image about 2 to 3 inches from the first to generate a decent 3D image, the company’s bundled software (Windows-only at present) mashing your photos together to render the final image.

The printer uses the anaglyph process, providing a stereoscopic 3D effect which doesn’t necessarily provide depth to images, instead highlighting the distances between images. We visited the Kodak blog which introduces the new 3D printer, demonstrating the process and also providing a 3D-rendered image to use as an example:

Whether the printer signals a new era of personal printing remains to be seen, we feel that as soon as the 3D camera technology becomes widely available, 3D printing could then become more widespread.NYTimes

10 things Steve Jobs could say during sex

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:32 AM PST

Yesterday I was joking around with Zee about the funny things Steve Jobs could say during sex in the comments section here. After that we came up with a few more funny quotes and this morning I decided to put them together in one image. Here you go.

Got more things that Steve could say? use the comments section.

Use this embed code if you want to place the image on your own site:

Sources:
http://www.softsailor.com/news/31414-youre-holding-it-wrong-apples-steve-jobs-says-about-iphone-4s-reception-problems.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Special_Events
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx7v815bYUw
http://www.allaboutstevejobs.com/sources/interviews/2008_Fortune.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7305193/Apple-TV-just-a-hobby-confirms-Tim-Cook.html
http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/24/steve-jobs-tablet-most-important/

Be sure and check out our previous infographics: The Worlds Most Obscure Top Level Domains, Comparing the Two Fastest Selling Gadgets of All Time, Chinese: The New Dominant Language of the Internet, and The Great Rise of the Mobile Web.

German Google Analytics users could face fines in privacy row

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:54 AM PST

German websites using Google Analytics to track their visitors may be in line for fines following a breakdown in talks between the country’s data protection officials and the search giant.

The German officials believe that Internet users’ privacy is being violated because the service collects detailed information about their browsing and sends it back to Google’s US servers for processing.

The Local reports that, despite talks to attempt to resolve the issue, Google hasn’t done enough to allay German officials’ concerns. While it has agreed to edit IP numbers for anonymity and created browser plugins to help user avoid tracking if they chose, there is yet to be a solution for Safari and Opera users and Johannes Caspar, commissioner for data protection in Hamburg, alleges that Google still collects full IP numbers for those who have opted out.

Users of Google Analytics in Germany could now face fines and there’s even talk of legal action against Google over the issue. The reason for all of this? In 2009, the country made the use of all web analytics tools illegal, unless users give their consent to be tracked.

To anyone who runs a website, this may well sound like madness. After all, IP tracking is a core part of how we understand who’s using our websites and what they want from them. However, Germany has a particularly privacy-conscious culture – one that has led to previous clashes with Google over its Street View product.Techmeme, Image source

Shazam To Allow Listening Of Discovered Songs On Spotify

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:38 AM PST

PaidContent is reporting that music discovery service Shazam has partnered with popular streaming service Spotify to allow users to open up songs they have discovered in the Spotify smartphone app.

The service, entitled “Play In Spotify”, will be available to both iPhone and Android users but will require premium subscriptions on both applications for the feature to work. Shazam offers a premium app called Shazam Encore which provides users with unlimited song lookups, whereas Spotify users must register at least a Premium account to be able to listen to music on-the-go.

The free app will also provide the feature but it will roll out to users by the end of March, a move aimed at generating more revenue for both companies. For those who don’t want to pay, a YouTube playback option is also provided.

In August we reported Shazam was adding a million users a week, topping 75 million users, by December it had eclipsed 100 million users. Spotify has enjoyed mixed fortunes, the service enjoys profitability in some European countries but has had to delay its US launch after negotiations with US labels broke down.

Being able to switch between the two apps and listen on the go will almost certainly drive new user signups and increase revenue for the two companies, pleasing users who have both apps in the process. If you don’t have either app, you can find more information here.Image Credit

Apple’s plan to topple Facebook? Build NICHE social networking apps, not websites.

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:18 AM PST

Facebook is a behemoth of a social network. The mother of all social networks. The largest social network on the planet with over 600 million members. While most still believe there’s another social network waiting to take over, one we’ve probably never heard of, my gut feeling is – in the era of one social network for all - Facebook has won.

What Apple is banking on however is that era will soon end and be replaced with a plethora of niche social networks, each giving its users a space to share and communicate with like-minded passionates.

What’s more, where Facebook and Google bank of the future of web based applications, Apple believes its desktop and local mobile applications with http connections to the web that will dominate in the years ahead.

I’m quite happy to admit this is largely conjecture, but a look at Apple’s recent social networking moves should help prove I haven’t simply pulled this out of thin air.

Game Center and Ping have both already launched, each with its own focus; gaming and music respectively. Today we also learnt of a ‘Find my Friends’ feature in the latest iOS 4.3 beta. You can be certain that Apple is venturing into the geo-location sphere, most likely as a feature of the its social networks rather than a location based social network in itself.

What other Apple social networks are around the corner? We can only speculate. But with Apple’s design and media pedigree, it isn’t far fetched an idea to consider a Photo/Media sharing social network to launch before long. With Ping in iTunes, will we see Apple’s photo social network attempt launch in iPhoto?

RIM opens its Messenger and Email services to Indian authorities

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 01:32 AM PST

Canadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has announced that it has provided solutions that will give Indian security agencies access to the popular messaging and email services used by BlackBerry smartphone owners in the country.

RIM also said that corporate email services remained unavailable to authorities, due to the fact the service incorporates a strict encryption algorithm that the company is not able to access, let alone provide access to a third-party.

Updating its customers, RIM stated:

“The lawful access capability now available to RIM’s carrier partners meets the standard required by the government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace.”

Back in August, Indian authorities pushed RIM to open up its messaging and email services, imposing a two week deadline on the company. Should the deadline not be met, the company would find its services blocked in the country.

Security agencies argued that terrorist groups could be using the services to communicate, utilising the encryption methods to remain undetected.

Indian authorities had previously been provided methods by which they could monitor Internet, voice calls and short-messaging services, today’s statement adds to messaging to the list.

Sources close to the matter note that data sent via the BlackBerry Messaging service is only scrambled and compressed, allowing for easier access, whereas RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server is uniformly encrypted to a point that not even RIM possesses a master key to access them.WSJ, Image Credit

Latest iOS SDK confirms existence of iPad 2 camera

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:55 PM PST

If you didn’t need any further proof that Apple would be integrating a camera (or cameras) into the iPad 2, the latest SDK for Apple’s iOS operating system includes camera graphics and shutter images specifically designed for the iPad, all but confirming the iPad 2 allow you to take photos and videos.

9to5mac opened up the SDK and found four images, icons and screens that are exact copies of the iPhone images but are designed to display on the higher resolution of an iPad screen. The camera shutter images come in at 1024 x 768, which is the same resolution as the current iPad. Whether this implies that the iPad 2 will not ship with a higher resolution display remains to be seen, after-all the SDK is still in beta and could be subject to change.

Apple could well update the images used by the camera application, rumours suggest Apple could announce the iPad 2 later this month meaning it still has time, but if it doesn’t Apple fans could be disappointed by the fact the screen has not been updated to deliver a sharper resolution.

Do you think Apple would purposefully not update its iPad screen or are the images serving as a placeholder until the real graphics are generated? Let us know in the comments.Image Credit

CDMA iPhone Heading To China, Japan and South Korea

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 11:31 PM PST

Two days ago Apple and Verizon ended months of speculation, confirming that the iPhone would be launching on the US operators CDMA networks.

Now that the slightly modified handset is available for a larger customer base in the US, it is rumored that the CDMA-enabled device could now be sold across a number of countries in Asia, most notable China, Japan and South Korea.

Sources have forecast that Apple’s shipping forecast for its CDMA iPhone is set at around 7 million units for the first quarter of 2011 but Digitimes believes Apple will also expand its offering and make it available in China, Japan and South Korea, smashing the company’s iPhone shipment records in the process.

It is expected that Foxconn would continue to supply US orders whilst Pegatron would deal with orders from Asia.

Digitimes reports that Apple’s CDMA iPhone orders earn its assembly partners over $65 million – companies including Foxconn Electronics and Pegatron Technology look set to benefit, whilst Taiwan-based component makers look set to profit from Apple’s desire to steadily adopt new technologies and design materials for its products.

Verizon currently boasts 93 million customers in the US, the release of the CDMA iPhone is set to double the number of iPhone users in the market. With Apple targeting China and a number of other eastern countries, Apple’s market share is set to rapidly increase over the coming months.Image Credit

Find My Friends feature in iOS 4.3 hints at geosocial iPhone network

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 10:48 PM PST

OK, so maybe Ping wasn’t the greatest idea. Apple might not have done very well with the whole social network idea, at least not when it’s built into iTunes. But what if Apple came out with something that you likely already use, and baked the idea directly into your phone?

New screenshots from deep within the latest developer release of iOS point out that Apple might be bringing in a “Find My Friends” feature to integrate with MobileMe.

As MacRumors points out — and we’re inclined to agree — this would appear to be aimed directly at services such as Loopt. The ability to turn on location and then connect with your friends is something that many apps and developers have tried hard to do, but few have done very well.

While Find My Friends likely wouldn’t have the deep Facebook integration that helps to make Loopt the standout in the category, we can’t help but think that there are more than enough iPhone users to make this successful. The ultimate question though is whether or not you would use it. Of course, it’s all speculation right now. We’re not positive that things are exactly as they seem, but they sure do seem obvious.

We’ll let you know more as we find it. For now, make sure to check out our post that covers all of the great changes that appear in the latest version of iOS.Photo Credit

Behind the scenes at Intel’s CESLive social media installation

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:57 PM PST

While we wrote heavily about CES on our Gadgets channel here at TNW, what we mainly wrote about were the products on the floor. But if you want your product to stand out, you really have to do some incredible work at CES. In the world where “booth babes” and pounding music are the norm, maybe the best answer is to make the world feel like they’re right there with you.

Feeding to our addiction with checking in and being social, Intel partnered with JESS3 to bring in data from a variety of sources and then make it look incredible. Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, Gowalla and even Facebook Places check-ins were monitored and totaled up for a massive, socially-savvy atmosphere.

As you can see in the video, the JESS3 team combined the power of HTML5 with CSS3 to create a real-time tracking mechanism for everything that was happening in social media while at CES. “Each of the rotating views — conversation, photos and geolocation — allowed viewers to see what was trending when it came to the products, companies and booth locations throughout the course of the five-day event.”

What’s really cool about the installation is the fact that Intel didn’t make it self-centered. By providing information for whatever was trending, visitors to CES could get a real-time view of the latest and greatest announcements no matter who was making them or where they were on the show floor.

It’s an interesting thing to see, when companies break out of the traditionally-understood molds for how social media “must work”. By stepping out and having engaging information, even about products other than their own, Intel set a standard that we really hope we’ll see happen more in the future.

Want to catch the whole behind-the-scenes deal? Make sure to check out the blog at JESS3. You’ll see wireframes, early sketches and find out how it all came together to make social media magic in the madhouse that is CES.

Canada’s family trees are about to get a digital makeover

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:22 PM PST

In a recent report from Library and Archives Canada, it was announced that over the next seven years the records of Canada’s heritage will be going completely digital.

While this might not sound wildly exciting to you at first, it does come with some perks for Canadian residents who care about genealogy. Going digital means it will be easier than ever to discover your roots because all of the information held by LAC (like all of the census forms) will be available in searchable databases, giving Canadians a really simple way to track down their ancestors. And with this information accessible, it eliminates the need to pay services such as Ancestry.com. In fact, LAC partnered with Ancestry.ca a few years back and over the next year, LAC plans to double the volume of its online content, bringing Canadians millions of genealogy images.

As part of the agreement, Ancestry.ca will digitize and index microfilm and original records held by LAC and make these available to Ancestry.ca members. All of the digitized records will eventually be available free of charge to users of the LAC website. November, 2008

Another benefit of storing the information in digital form, is it reduces the impact to our environment. LAC currently sends out about 750,000 photocopies each year and hopes to completely phase out paper copies by April 2011.

How to search your genealogy today

As stands today, there are a number of census forms that are already working with databases, capable of allowing users to search people by region and name. And, if you've ever tried to research your genealogy, you'll know how valuable that is.

Unfortunately, the extent of what the LAC has done is uploading the census forms as images. However, as we'd mentioned there are working databases, they're just not available from the LAC site. Aside from Ancestry.ca, I personally found that Automated Genealogy was extremely helpful for finding family members within the census forms because they can be searched by surname. Automated Genealogy has a great deal of data including; 1901, 1906 and 1911 census forms.

LAC states on the site, that by the summer of 2011, all digital images and indexes to those census returns will be available on the Library and Archives Canada website.

Taking advantage of new digital information technologies will change not only the way we acquire and preserve our collection but also how we make it accessible to Canadians.” – Dr. Daniel J. Caron, Librarian and Archivist of Canada.

LAC, Luxegen, Image: Canada, Image: Family

Could the iPad 2 lose its home button? iOS 4.3 says yes.

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:03 PM PST

While digging around in the workings of Apple’s latest iOS beta, some developers have noticed a pretty interesting thing. As we noted in our post covering the release of the beta, there are new 4 and 5-finger gestures that are applicable to the iPad. While they’re interesting, there’s a deeper story to be told by the functions involved with them.

If you’ll pay special attention to the text underneath the Mulitasking Gestures section, you’ll note that there are three actions that can be had:

  • Pinch to the Home Screen
  • Swipe up to reveal multitasking bar
  • Swipe left or right between apps

Now, why is that interesting? Think for a moment about the functions of the home button on your iPad. Press it once to return home, two quick presses to bring up the multitasking bar. The addition of swiping between apps would replace the need to double-press the button then select the app you want to bring into focus.

So does this mean that we’re going to see a buttonless iPad 2? Rumors have been flying about the things that could come to the device, but I’m pretty certain that nobody has called this before now. Further, according to BGR, an internal source at Apple has confirmed that the reason for the addition is expressly for the removal of the home button on iOS devices.

So does that mean that we’ll see a buttonless iPhone 5, as well? It could very well happen. For those of us who know and love our Apple gestures, it wouldn’t be a very big change. And of course there’s the added feature of increased screen real estate. When you consider that you’re effectively adding an inch to the trailing edge of the screen, that opens up a whole bunch of extra pixel space.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball thinks otherwise:

That it is the one and only button the faces of these devices is a bit part of why normal people are able to pick them, starting playing with them, and figure out how to get around with no help. How in the world would a normal person figure out or guess that they need to do a "five-finger pinch" to get back to the home screen?

We’ll have to wait and see. As best as we can figure, the iPad 2 will be announced in March. Until then, we’ll keep tossing out all the best rumors we find so you can eat them up at your leisure.Photo Credit

Wajam adds a social twist to searching on the web

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:39 PM PST

WajamWajam, a Montreal-based startup is using the power of your social networks to enhance searching on engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The thought behind the service is this.. when you're looking for information on a subject, you'd probably rather hear info from one of your friends instead of just blindly searching an engine like Google. So Wajam has taken that idea and has nicely added a social layer of information that shows up on a search page. As an example, if you were looking for information on a Android, Wajam would post the most relevant results of any friends that have shared anything on Android.

The service works by importing all of the links that your friends are sharing on Twitter, Facebook and Delicious, and makes them readily available when you perform a search. But, this service isn't limited to social networks, it also enables users to import bookmarks from their browser via an .html or .htm file. And the bookmarks can even be automatically synchronized to continually update as you add them.

After installing the Wajam browser plug-in (the thing that makes the magic happen) it will immediately embed the shared links on the page next time you do a search. Wajam offers a few different ways to view information on a search page and by default the plug-in condenses the social links so users don't find it obtrusive.  Users can "view more" results which will display the top 11 results from the search or choose to see all of their friends that have mentioned the topic. We’ll also mention that Wajam is beta and is still in the process of working out the kinks.

One of the biggest drawbacks with using the service is that it often posts old information that my friends have shared. If the team was able to tweak the plug-in to only show information from the last 30 days, it would add a lot more value to the service.

This takes the two-step process of searching stuff on social networks and search engines and boils it down to one step. A handy tool for anyone who values the opinions of their networks. Wajam is free and its plug-in is available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Image: Girl

Still waiting for Firefox 4? Now slated for a February release.

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:26 PM PST

If you, like us, have been chomping at the bit for a final release of Firefox 4 then it seems like February might hold the answer to your prayers. While we reported a few months ago that the release wouldn’t be until 2011, it seems that the news was dead on. According to PCWorld, only 160 bugs separate the Firefox team from a final release of version 4.

In the coming weeks, then, the Firefox development team should aim to clear those hurdles by the beginning of February and ship a final version of the open source browser before the end of next month.

According to the Mozilla Senior Director of Platform Engineering Damon Sicore:

We’ll drive the beta bugs to zero and ship another beta. If we can’t get them to zero in reasonable time, we’ll repeat, deliberately.

So there you have it. With the current battle over H.264 support in Google’s Chrome, Firefox has had a stage set for it to walk in and take an even greater hold. What’s your browser of choice? While we continue to see huge growth from Chrome users here at TNW, Firefox has a massive share of the market. Have you done some checking of Version 4 yet? You should.

Behind-The-Scenes of a Canadian Game Studio Startup

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:02 PM PST

Ever wondered what it takes to create a video game studio? A Canadian-based startup called Bulletproof Outlaws intends to show you.

Bulletproof Outlaws is documenting every step of the arduous game studio creation process, and it’s providing daily behind-the-scenes information on its site. It doesn’t really go into the technical side of developing games but it’s recording the business side of the undertaking; strategies, outsourcing and marketing.

How do you distribute a press release when you have no money? Day 6 sheds some light on how it’s done, and it lists a series of free press release distribution services like PRLog and WidePR. Measuring stats, financial projections, setting goals and creating flowcharts are just a few of the topics that have been covered so far.

The Calgary startup aims to encourage developers to fulfill their aspirations of building their own studios, a dream that Bulletproof Outlaws says a lot of developers have but they're too scared of the risks. And, by observing someone else’s approach, successes and failures, it may just give devs the courage to do it.

Bulletproof Outlaws says it believes that the new era of game development has arrived and has come back full circle to its "one programmer in the basement roots". And in the mobile game space, this has been proved to be true. Jeff Hangartner, the founder of Bulletproof Outlaws says “The nicest part about being a small financially independent studio is that I can try outside-the-box ideas…I mean, I’m typing this from a mall food court, my “office” for the day”, he told us via email.

Hangarner tells us, he would have killed for the information that kids have access to today and by extending all of his knowledge to others, it might inspire more developers to follow their dreams.Image: Gamers

Tomorrow Microsoft will release WebMatrix, a free tool to help non-developers build a website

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 04:02 PM PST

Microsoft will tomorrow release the full version of a new tool called WebMatrix that will help people “of all skill levels easily create, customize and publish websites to the Internet.” It should go live tonight at midnight Pacific Time.

Microsoft calls the move part of its “web platform vision.” The product itself provides “everything you need to build websites using Windows.” The team behind WebMatrix is calls it “small, simple, and seamless.”

The product is a a combination of a development server (IIS Express), ASP.NET, and the embedded database SQL Server Compact. WebMatrix also provides “a database editor, Web site and server management, search optimization, FTP publishing.”

To manage hosting, Microsoft has partnered with a number of companies to provide negotiated-rate hosting for WebMatrix users. Of course, if you want to use your own hosting, you can.

Why would Microsoft give so much away for free? The answer is simple: upselling. Microsoft wants people to use SQL Sever and Visual Studio, two popular Microsoft development products. Get people into the world of developing using Windows, Microsoft seems to be thinking, and they won’t leave later, which means big software sales down the road. The WebMatrix team was demure when I mentioned the upsell point, stressing that they aren’t focused on it as a goal.

People often comment on how long-range Microsoft’s vision is, and how deep its patience. WebMatrix fits well into those truths.

There is one last element of WebMatrix that caught our eye: open source. As part of the tool set, Microsoft has made available a number of open source web applications such as WordPress, Joomla, Umbraco, DotNetNuke, and Orchard. Nice touch on top of a free product, right?

If you have ever thought about coding, we recommend that you check this out.Top Image Credit

How To: Prevent Blurry iPhone Photos

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 03:50 PM PST

We’ve talked quite a bit about photos here on TNW LifeHacks. The reality though is that we often times don’t even use a “real” camera to take them. Those of us in the mobile generation tend to use our phones for the vast majority of our day to day snapping.

tap tap tap, the folks behind the best-selling app Camera+, have a little video to display a handy trick that we sure didn’t know about:

So there you go. Quick and easy fixes, right? Have more? Let us know in the comments.

The Daily Show about the iPhone on Verizon

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 03:06 PM PST

I love to watch Jon Stewart on the Daily Show but I love it even more when they talk technology instead of politics, enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Verizon iPhone Announcement
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show

Momentfeed is Google Analytics for the Real World

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:51 PM PST

Array

Over the years, analytics has proven to be a pretty good business.  Whether it be web analytics services like Comscore and Omniture or social media analytics services like Radian6 and Visible Technologies, companies have proven that they will pay good money for a better understanding of how people are interacting with their web site or brand online.

But what about the real world?  With the proliferation of location based services, it would seem that there is a real opportunity to better understand how people go about their daily lives.  What merchants they frequent, and when.  How they respond to coupons and offers.  And which people are actively promoting merchants to their friends.

With the vast majority of commerce still happening offline, this information is pure gold.

Services like Foursquare are already offering SMBs and brands analytics around Foursquare checkins and engagement.

But to date, we haven't seen any company attempt to aggregate data from across all the geosocial networks to present a more complete look at consumer, real world behavior.

Enter Momentfeed.

Momentfeed is currently crunching data from Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook (with plans to pull in activity from Google Buzz, Yelp, Loopt, Scvngr, and more).

Momentfeed's sweet spot appears to be local or national brands that have hundreds or thousands of locations.

Let's say, for example, you run marketing for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Using the Momentfeed dashboard, you are able to run a head to head comparison of your thousands of locations vs. those of your competitor Starbucks.

You are able to quickly see your top locations by number of check-ins, as well as those of your competitors.  You can see how adjacent, competing coffee shops are performing.  And you can cut this data by all of your locations, or any individual location, while filtering for each of the major geo networks: Foursquare, Facebook Places, Twitter, and Gowalla.

While this data is certainly interesting to see all in the same place, where things get a little more sophisticated is in Momentfeed's use of a proprietary algorithm that shows engagement.  By throwing out volume of check-ins, Momentfeed is able to calculate a national or regional engagement score across multiple locations for a given brand.  This engagement score takes into account whether or not people are commenting or posting photos with their check-ins, or pushing their check-ins out to Twitter and Facebook.  And once you have a benchmark engagement score established, you are able to measure the effectiveness of various geolocation oriented marketing campaigns.  In the case of Starbucks vs. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, it would seem that Starbucks users are slightly more engaged, at least in Southern California where the data set resides.

It's neat stuff.

One of the interesting, macro takeaways that I got from playing with this coffee shop data for Southern California is that Foursquare is still more than holding its own against Facebook Places, at least if you consider Starbucks and Coffee Bean locations in Socal as a proxy for the entire universe of venues.  On any given day it seems as if there are 2-3X as many check-ins to these two coffee chains on Foursquare as there are on Facebook Places.   Twitter and Gowalla are far behind as the preferred means to share location.

Momentfeed's marketing strategy is to showcase fun and interesting data gleaned through its analytics platform, and distribute it through local media.  For example, Momentfeed has an account that is loaded up with check-in data for all of the top nightclub data in and around Los Angeles.  At any given time, or snapshot of time, you are able to rank the most popular nightclubs (or at least the ones that are most appealing to early adopters).  This would seem to have great infographic potential for a weekend guide for the LA Times.

Momentfeed is off to a very good start.  For them to be successful, there seem to be a couple of key success factors.  For example, one network can't win.  If either Foursquare or Facebook win the check-in space outright, the value proposition of aggregating multiple networks will go away.  Furthermore, the check-in gesture will need to continue growing and expanding beyond early adopters.  If this doesn't happen, Momentfeed will become nothing more than a neat tool to see where people from the industry are hanging out.  And finally, Momentfeed is dependent on stable, open APIs from each of the main players.

Here are some screenshots of the service.  You can sign up for a private beta HERE.

Location-aware task reminders, via your iPhone

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 02:17 PM PST

A new iPhone app called Task Ave, adds a location-based twist to the standard task list app by sending you an alert when you're nearby one of your errands.

If you've ever uttered the words "damn, I should have grabbed that when I was in the area" this app is for you. It's a simple app that ties each task to a location, and when you're nearby, it will send an alert to the device reminding you. The user-interface is elegant and easy to use. It offers a map and a task list where multiple errands can be added to a single location. There are also a few options within the settings that enable users to tweak the proximity distances, a feature that adjusts the alert to be sent when the user is between 500 meters to 12 km away.

Task Ave Inc, (the creators of the app) is a Toronto-based startup that joined forces a few months ago during an event. However, the app itself isn’t limited to Canada. It will work anywhere in the world which makes it an ideal companion for traveling. After all, when you're in a foreign place, the business of running errands can be quite a feat.

Born in 54 Hours

Earlier today, we spoke with Task Ave's developer Tony Wallace and he told us that the company was born over one weekend this past September at Startup Weekend Toronto. It's a community building three day event designed to bring together developers, marketers and designers. The goal is to form teams over the weekend to see if you can come up with a prototype in 54 hours.

Wallace, a fairly new developer told us that the development of Task Ave began as an exercise at the event, a project he gravitated towards after hearing the initial pitch. After he joined the small group of five, they worked on the development over the duration of weekend, ultimately winning first place at the event.

The developer tells us that Task Ave's biggest asset is ease of use, and they're carefully ensuring that future updates continue to drive simplicity.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to remember to grab a product while I was at the mall. Usually, I remember on the drive home. By using Task Ave, I can now add all of the items I need at the mall ahead of time, and it will send me location-aware reminders soon after arriving. Overall the concept is pretty sweet.

Task Ave is available at the app store for $2.99.

Image: Girl

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