Friday, January 14, 2011

19 new stories on The Next Web today

19 new stories on The Next Web today

Link to The Next Web

How Apple’s “Controlled Leak” policy keeps us hooked

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 03:24 AM PST

Apple is known for its strict code of secrecy, there aren’t many companies that have such control over new products and services they are about to unveil.

The Cupertino company refuses to engage with blogs, barely interacting with mainstream media publications, it doesn’t provide an insight into the company via its website, a Twitter stream or various other forms of online marketing like many other major corporations do. Employees face an instant dismissal if news is leaked to a publication, leading industry rivals and suppliers to source executives within the company to provide inside information on Apple’s trade deals.

This adds to the company’s mystery but it also fuels a huge amount of speculation. News outlets are constantly trying to predict what is coming next from Apple. In a world where news travels fast, the outlet that is first to report on a specific piece of Apple news finds its coverage replicated across the Internet. When bloggers or the media have actually gotten a prediction 100% correct, Apple has been known to spread misinformation to discredit the source of the news.

The NYTimes gives us just one example from Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray:

Four years ago, a senior Apple executive directly told him the company had no interest in developing a cheap iPod with no screen. Soon after, the company released just that: the iPod Shuffle.

Despite all of this, Apple employs unique tactics to spread information about its products, without having to engage with the media.

This week, the company released iOS 4.3 Beta for developers, an updated version of its iOS operating system for both iPhone and iPad. Apple’s OS updates tend to add new features, provide stability to existing features and remove options that its users disliked. That’s not all though, the company is increasingly offering specific references within its framework to unannounced features and the release of new products.

This, in effect is Apple’s “controlled leak” process, a process that it would never admit to, but exists all the same.

Take a look at the iOS 4.3 beta. Apple has enabled a personal hotspot option on the iPhone, the iPad will now allow the user to decide the action the side switch on the device performs, as well as multitasking gestures and an update to the App Store layout – these are just few notable features made available by the update.

References to these features can be found within the beta, a developer can open specific parts of the iOS firmware using the SDK provided via the iOS Dev Center website.

In just two days, developers (and writers with developer accounts) are falling over themselves to find references to Apple’s next-generation iPad, a device that is expected to be announced within the next two months. Apple doesn’t provide code, instead developers pore over metadata included in the release, highlighting specific mentions to new iOS features on in many cases, an unreleased product.

The difficulty about reporting on the metadata is that Apple could be referencing functions that are set to change. We recently wrote an article on the fact iOS 4.3 beta includes mentions of an iPad 2 camera. The resolution of the graphics provided suggested that the iPad 2 would feature the exact resolution of the existing iPad, which of course would discredit any publication that had reported that the next-generation iPad would feature a Retina Display.

Our readers aren’t oblivious to it either, commenting that Apple are the “kings of controlled leaks”:

Apple is ultimately teasing us – even when the iPhone 4 was outed, found on a bar stool, Apple still managed to woo the public with the unveiling of a device that had a 1GHz ARM processor, a Retina Display, an 5MP HD camera and a new version of its iOS software to power it. Nobody predicted it because Apple’s big doors of secrecy closed shut after its spectacular failure to keep the design of the product secret.

The cycle works for Apple, it continues to profit heavily from our desire to upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware it offers, whilst remaining deathly silent about its products before they launch. The inclusion of specific pieces of metadata keeps the industry guessing but also generates an unparalleled amount of coverage.

Some love to hate Apple, some would like to be buried with their Macbook Air, we sit firmly in the middle.

You can’t deny, Apple’s marketing is second to none.Image Credit (iPad)

RIM expected to ship 1 million BlackBerry Playbook’s in first quarter

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 01:19 AM PST

Digitimes, the Chinese trade publication capable of drawing comments from every industry source close to the worlds largest smartphone manufacturers, is at it again suggesting that RIM will ship more than one million of its BlackBerry Playbook tablets in the first quarter of 2011.

It suggests that shipments could mirror those of Motorola, when it launches its Xoom tablet. Reports suggest that the company has already placed 800,000 orders for its Android 3.0-powered device.

RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook will debut in March, initially launching with a Wi-Fi-only model before it starts shipping a 3G-enabled tablet in the second quarter. The Canadian company also announced it would launch a 4G-enabled Playbook device before July.

The BlackBerry Playbook was unveiled at the company’s DevCon Conference back in September and was quickly lauded for its ability to support open frameworks and numerous web technologies. Despite rumours of delays, RIM says production is still going ahead and devices will still ship within the first quarter in the US.Image Credit

Nokia lowers Finnish job cuts from 800 to 500 employees

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:53 PM PST

Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturer has announced it will cut 500 jobs in Finland, lowering expectations from the proposed 800 employees that were announced with labor unions in December.

We reported in December that Nokia had complied with Finnish labour legislation, entering negotiations about the planned reductions in October with personnel representatives. It was announced that the maximum impact on staff would not exceed 800 employees as the company would look to relocate as many of its workers as possible.

The company seems to have achieved its goal, relocating a large portion of its staff to open positions at the company.

It is expected that Nokia will cut 120 jobs from its main headquarters in Espoo, axing 198 positions in Tampere, 103 in Oulu and 82 in Salo, the latter serving as a manufacturing facility. Those affected by the cuts have already been served their notice and will receive five to fifteen months pay, reducing the number of positions classified as involuntary job cuts.

The company has recently taken over development of the Symbian operating system from the Symbian Foundation, there were even rumours the manufacturer would look to release a range of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Things are changing at Nokia, its new CEO Stephen Elop is making sure of that.Bloomberg, Image Credit

Samsung preparing to release Samsung Galaxy S Mini handset?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:35 PM PST

New images have leaked suggesting that Samsung is preparing to add a smaller and more robust version of its Galaxy S handset.

It’s the first time the handset, codenamed Samsung S5830, has emerged in photos but judging from the images it will compliment the already hugely successful range of Galaxy S smartphones and could possibly be referred to as the Samsung Galaxy S Mini.

The specifications are mostly unknown but it is said to sport a HVGA (480 x 320 pixels) screen, run Android 2.2 and feature Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, MicroUSB, 5MP camera, and MicroSD card support.

The device is expected to make an appearance at Mobile World Congress in February, alongside a number of 4G-enabled smartphones currently in development by the world’s most popular Android manufacturer.

Don’t expect this to be the last you see of this device before MWC, once a handset leaks, it doesn’t remain undercover for long.

Image Credit

You need beta testers, your beta testers need this iPhone app

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 10:26 PM PST

So you've developed an app. Now what? It's time to unleash your app into the wild by asking people to beta test your application. This is an important step to document so you'll need to find an easy and effective way to keep all of the data organized. Enter App Enroller.

App Enroller (free) helps iOS developers enroll and organize beta testers. It simplifies the process by allowing developers to send a personalized invite code instead of having the testers input an email address.

After the developer chooses an easy to remember invite code they can tell their beta testers to go download App Enroller. The app then collects a survey from the beta tester within the app, and sends you the information so you're able to securely store it. The survey can either be directly sent to your website or via email in an attachment.

I've not yet developed an iOS app myself, so I haven't had to use a UDID app for the purpose of collecting data. But from what I hear, it is possible to remove contact details.

“most testers had no idea what they were actually using on their device. The few that use the UDID sender that captured these details removed it! Aaargh! “

Following the tester inputting the customized invite code, the user will be given a quick survey with details that include; name, email and age. It also lets the person testing your app know that the OS version, iOS device model, and UDID will be sent automatically for them. Developers have the ability to tweak the survey to force details to be manditory/required. When the user/tester submits the survey it can be sent to any email address you wish.Image: Beta Testers

CityPockets: A Digital Wallet for Social Coupons

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:02 PM PST

Social coupon services like Groupon and Living Social can potentially save you a lot of cash with discounted vouchers. Although, it's pretty easy to lose track of them, and if you're using a bunch of these coupon services, you might even forget to use them before the expiry dates. Here's where the new service CityPockets comes in handy.

New York-Based startup CityPockets, gives deal-hunters a way to manage multiple coupon services in one tidy place. It's a free service that imports your vouchers from deal sites like Groupon, Living Social and Boards Deals, and it will organize them and remind you when the coupon is close to expiring.

How it Works

After a user adds their credentials on each deal site they belong to, CityPockets will list all of the vouchers within its elegant coupon organizer, and will place them in categories. There are several ways to view deals; by the type of coupon (dining, retail) and by date.

citypockets

To ensure a deal is never missed, users can browse deals by those expiring this week or in one to six months. But, it will send you a reminder when something is about to expire. There’s also an option to see all of the deals overlaid on a map, a super handy tool to use (or print) before hitting the town. Overall, both the categories feature and the way it sorts the deals by date is a major win.

If you're serious about deals, this is going to save you time because by using CityPockets you no longer need to log-in to multiple sites. Another benefit of the service, is it enables users to easily pull up coupons from their mobile phones or print a PDF’s of each coupon from one place. And, the option to view your entire list of coupons on a map and receive reminders is kinda nifty. We’d like to hear what you think. Would you use this service?

Featured: Image

Cubeduel Launches Social Game on… LinkedIn?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 06:27 PM PST

Array

If you haven't yet played around with Cubeduel, do it now.  It won't make you any smarter, but it's an oddly entertaining way to browse through your coworkers from years gone by in a hilarious, cage match format.

Cubeduel is an unexpected opportunity to evaluate head to head match-ups that you just wouldn't see in the wild.  Who would I rather have worked with in that telecom job I had ten years ago: Ramu from accounting, or Nathalie from sales?  Predictably, I had never really thought about that question before.  Fun!

Evaluate a certain number of duels and you get to see your own score, as well as those of your co-workers.  All votes are anonymous, so participation, in theory, shouldn't get you fired.

But what I find most fascinating about Cubeduel is that it was built on the LinkedIn API.  Yes, this is a social game built around your work network.  I can't recall seeing something like this before, at least not built on LinkedIn.

So will Cubeduel usher in the gamification of the workplace?  Will a stealthy Farmville for the Enterprise startup announce $11.5M in new funding [God help us all] ?  After all, who has more free time and a faster internet connection than somebody in an office?

At this point, we don't know.

But let this be a gentle reminder to all of us entrepreneurs.

Innovation can come in all shapes and sizes.  It might be the introduction of a new behavior, like Foursquare. It might be the simplification of an existing behavior, like Instagram.  It might be the gravitas of the participants themselves, like Quora.  It might lie in the distribution channel, like Yammer.  Or it might even be the network of people that your app runs on, like Cubeduel.

Food for thought.

Is Groupon on the verge of a $15 billion IPO?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 06:16 PM PST

It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about how insane the thought of a $2.5 billion acquisition would be for Groupon. Apparently, after having just raised some $950 millon from big-name financiers, the Chicago-based company is already in talks for an initial public offering. That IPO, according to the New York Times, could value Groupon at $15 billion.

Since rejecting Google's overtures, the company has been on the fast track for an I.P.O. In late December Groupon hired its first chief financial offer, Jason Child, the former vice president of finance for Amazon.com's international business. Mr. Child spent nearly 12 years at the giant online retailer, serving in a variety of financial roles.

Not many details are available about the possible IPO, but the Times says that Groupon has been in discussion with bankers this week and that people with knowledge of the deal expect the IPO to happen sometime in spring. In the mean time, Groupon continues to partner with and acquire smaller deals brokers around the globe.

Suffice it to say, $15 billion is an absolutely, startlingly huge number. But Groupon’s golden child Andrew Mason seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to his business. Nevertheless, the company is stil in its infant stages, even if it does appear to be massively profitable.Image Credit — Inc.

Kindle-exclusive walking and eating guides come to Amazon

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 05:49 PM PST

Want to know the best restaurants in a city? How about the best walking paths and the stories that go along with them? Amazon Kindle owners (both the device and the app) are now able to grab some exclusive content that can help you do these things and more.

According to Reuters, the content deal kicks off with a book called Chef Walks: Seattle with celebrity chef Tom Douglas. In the guide, you’ll get a walking tour around Seattle’s best and brightest culinary establishments, plus the ability to see Seattle through Douglas’ eyes.

If you’re a walker and/or a foodie, the $3.99 guides are likely a great deal for you. At any rate, they’re a good read and an interesting twist on your Kindle library. Just make sure that you’re carrying an actual Kindle if you want to go walking and reading in the sun.Image

The Daily gets pushed back. Launch is now “weeks” away.

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 05:35 PM PST

Not long after we just showed you a first look at what the joint Apple/Murdoch project might look like, we’re seeing news from Media Memo saying that we’ll have to wait a bit longer to finally use it for ourselves. Citing sources close to the parties, it appears that Apple needs to do a bit more work on the subscription model.

The delay is supposed to give Apple time to tweak its new subscription service for publications sold through its iTunes platform.

Of course that “weeks” figure (assuming that we’re talking more than about 2) means that The Daily is now going to be pushed beyond it’s initial January starting point. But this time will likely give Apple the leeway needed to perfect a “push” subscription feature wherein you can purchase a subscription once and get a new edition daily without having to subscribe again.

That same model could have very well been a tipping point for the Wired Magazine iPad application. While it does look amazing, there are a number of people who feel slighted by having to repurchase the same thing each month in order to get the newest content.

Will Apple implement the push subscriptions for others, as well? We’ll have to wait and see, but it seems only to make sense.Techmeme

Can’t hold the cam? Try Adrenocam

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 04:48 PM PST

Wearable cameras have come down a considerable amount over the last few years but best of all, the camera quality is better than ever. The HD 1080p MX Goggles by Liquid Image, is an impressive example of a wearable cam under $500, although wearing ski goggles isn’t always practical.

A gadget named Adrenocam, is another type of point-of-view camera that is worn as a headset and it shoots video at 30 frames per second (720 x 480). The camera that is attached on the earpiece, fits securely in place so it can be used for action-packed adventures like a friendly game of paintball or extreme sports.

The DVR headset attaches to a 2.5" LCD screen with a resolution of 960×240 which enables users to watch recording in real-time or view playbacks of the footage. Video is stored on an SD card (up to 32 GB) however it doesn't ship with the product. It's also equipped with a microphone and speakers and uses H.264 video compression that produces near-DVD quality footage according to Chinavasion.

AdrenoCam is powered by a Lithium Ion battery that should give you enough juice for 4 hours of constant recording — not too shabby. One of the biggest drawbacks with the MX goggles we mentioned earlier was the battery life. And although the video quality of Liquid Image's goggles are superior to the AndrenoCam, I felt that the hour and half of battery life was pretty limiting.

Aside from video, the Adrencam can snap pictures at 720 x 480 resolution in JPG format. It comes with USB and AV cables and a power adapter, and it’s available for $220.

Chinavasion says this gadget is perfect for CS combat, war games and military or tactical operations. However, the size of this device makes it ideal for any situation where you weren't able to hold a cam. We'll just let your imagination run with that.CoolestGadgets, Image: Featured

Posterous introduces photo slideshows from any page

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 04:34 PM PST

If you’re like us, and chance are good that you are, you tend to post a lot of pictures to Posterous. While the gallery feature is awesome, and we love how easy it is to create a great looking page, sometimes it would be nice to create a slideshow from all of those pictures that you’ve loaded onto the site.

Hearing that request, the Posterous team has been hard at work and has just released a slideshow feature across the site. Now, when you’re viewing a photo, you can view a slideshow just by clicking on the included link over the photo:

Want more ways to do it? OK, here you go:

Yes, right there from your toolbar, you can view a slideshow of your own images. Note that we said images. Videos aren’t supported, just yet. But the feature is brand new and still very cool. For now, we’re happy to get the new slideshows.

Almost surely, more features will be implemented as time goes on. Being able to do a slideshow from a single gallery, perhaps, would be a great feature. We’ll let you know as the Posterous team updates things. For now, just sit back and enjoy the slides.

The new Bing ad spot is all about the iPhone

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:29 PM PST

Bing has released a new advertising video to promote its iOS application, an app that it wants to perform well to give the search engine a stronger hold in the world of mobile search.

If you have never used it, and most people haven’t, Bing for iOS is actually a rather capable application. Still, it is always something of a shock to see Microsoft so heavily promoting an iPhone when its own mobile platform is so young.

Still, the new video is impressive. It tracks a man through a day’s activities which culminate in a rather important proposition, which you will get when you watch it. If you have an iPhone and want to check out the other side of the fence, or just want to burn a few minutes, the clip is worth watching.

Image Credit, Via WinRumors

Introducing TNW Video, our Silicon Valley Studio and Miss Hermione Way

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:27 PM PST

Array

It brings me enormous pleasure to officially announce the launch of TNW Video, our new channel devoted to bringing you news, views, interviews, events and a whole lot more in gorgeous rich video.

We’ve got a humble studio set up in SOMA San Francisco and it’s open night and day for you to stop by, say hello, share some news or just hang out.

If you thought that was exciting, wait till you hear who we’ve brought on board running the show, the wonderful Hermione Way. To those of you who may have not heard of her, Hermione is no stranger to the web – in fact she’s all over it – she’s co-hosted the TNW Conference two years running, founded Newspepper.com & Techfluff.TV, toured the world on  various expeditions and now, we’ve recruited her as our Video Director based in the heart of San Francisco.

So what can you expect and where to find us? Take it away Hermione.
-

(Update: Oh and if you’re a writer, based in San Francisco, and passionate about technology, the web and startups - we’re hiring!)

Welcome to TNW Video!

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:18 PM PST

Thank you for the intro Zee!

Well hello there! I’m extremely excited to be heading up The Next Web’s Silicon Valley Video studio in San Francisco.

I have been working in the online media and technology space for a few years now and I’m very passionate about the shift in media being driven by technology. I’m also fascinated by the people behind the technology, the entrepreneurs who are thinking big and making things happen.

So what can you expect to find here?

News, events and interviews with different types of people involved in the technology industry from VC’s and investors to lead developers and entrepreneurs. Plus other video related funnies I’ve spotted on the web.

How can you get involved?

If you have some ground breaking technology/cool products/events you want to share with me on video please email hermione@thenextweb/.com We also have a video studio in the heart of startup land SOMA in San Francisco, please feel free to email and pop round whenever you are in the area. We will be holding regular events where you can come and network with some industry influentials. Follow me on Plancast for updates. Press releases event invites also welcome: hermione@thenextweb.com.

A quick video blog to say hi!

You can also stay tuned to TNW Video via RSS, You Tube, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook and TNW Video here on The Next Web.

Oh and where to find us? Voila:


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Love shopping? Aprizi is the Pandora of online fashion.

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:52 PM PST

Fashion and machine learning don’t often make their way into the same conversation. Enter the new era of online shopping: Meet Aprizi, an etymological twist on the French word meaning to learn and the Italian word for prize. “We want you to discover on our site, and we want you to feel like you’ve won something,” explains one of the site’s co-founders Giff Constable.

The home page carousel displays four fashion items at once, and gives you the option to like and dislike each one. After twelve items, the carousel pauses to think, then returns with a new set of items that are smarter and catered towards your taste. This algorithmic approach to shopping is why people in New York City’s start-up scene are calling Aprizi, “the Pandora of online fashion.”

The carousel refreshes slowly but trust me, it’s much faster than a sales attendant learning your taste based on which items you leave on the dressing room floor. While at first, I only liked about 10% of what was offered to me, after two rounds of liking and disliking, the carousel noticabely started to catch on to the fact that I like the color purple, prefer natural looking, funky jewelry and outfits with bold patterns in bright colors.

The site pulls from hundreds of different merchants and includes hundreds of different items, adding about 50 new items a day. Items are selected by Aprizi’s 10 curators who were cherry picked from hundreds of applicants. All items on the site have to meet 3 categories: They have to be special, beautiful or meaningful; they can’t come from a big brand or celebrity and they have to be for sale.

The algorithm learns based on certain repeating semantic tags such as eco-friendly, artisan, handmade and based on which curators you tend to graviate towards. If you dislike heels or chunky bracelets enough, it’s smart enough to pick up on that and not show you heels or chunky bracelets again. However the constraints are flexible to keep a bit of diversity in there, particularly because their user base, mostly women, can be so fickle.

Aprizi also has a neat blog that includes articles titled “Dress Me” for categories like “Warm Weather Escape,” and entries by other cool NYC fashion start-ups, like this recent one from the founders of Of A Kind.

Celebrating independent design isn’t cheap. Almost every item I liked was between $250-$500. So then I started browsing by price and specific category and found neighborhood’s worth of beautiful, affordable clothing and accessories. The site saves all of your likes, as well as items you find on other websites through it’s bookmarklet.

It’s fun to walk down the street in the East Village, but it’s not fun to shop on the web, and we want to change that. -Giff Constable

Co-Founders Giff Constable the design guy and CEO and Liz Crawford, the CTO with a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon were introduced by venture capitalists intrigued by Crawford’s work in machine learning. They beta launched in late September 2010 and have been doubling users every month since. In October, they had 2,500 users which grew to 10,000 visits in December. The start-up is currently working within New York’s not-so-secret yet still hush-hush co-working space, General Assembly.

The early-stage bootstrapped business is talking to investors and plans to start making money in the traditional way, you know, by selling stuff. From their users, Giff and Liz are learning a lot about which designers are trending and what’s popular. They plan to use all of that data to sell curated, limited runs of certain items in the near future.

After finding these Robot cufflinks from Etsy on Aprizi, I officially have a new favorite shopping site.

A new Android tablet aimed at education

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 02:47 PM PST

A Canadian startup called mySpark Technologies is creating an Android tablet that sports a dual-core 1Ghz processor, and it's aimed at educational institutions.

The tablet slated to launch mid 2011, was solely designed with students and teachers in mind, and it will integrate with campus stores and libraries allowing students to download content and digital textbooks. Hopefully, at a dramatically discounted price.

mySpark's new tablet named mySpark Education Platform, will offer a 10" touch-screen, 2 cameras (front and back facing), an SD card slot and it supports both WiFi and Bluetooth. It will also come in two flavours; 4GB and 8GB. We suppose since it's geared at education, they figure the internal storage is enough, and we're assuming it's not intended for storing large media collections.

Using this system, teachers and students can collaborate on a whole new level, and it will likely come with a series of Android apps to support that. As an example, by using the MySpark Education Platform students and educators could both insert notes and media within class notes or coursework, possibly allowing for real-time changes and edits.

In a press release of the mySpark Education Platform, it stated that the tablet will also come with "ideabook", an app that will enable students to store a wide variety of content such as class projects. And, its system is said to bring students a collaborative experience through group chats & message boards, and a way to post questions through instant messaging. This new tablet will additionally offer support for Adobe Flash, stylus pens and docking stations.

We believe students should be engaged, teachers should be empowered and administrators enlightened by how technology can transform education… We are creating a mobile platform built for learning, one that the entire educational community will embrace. -MySpark Technologies

Tablets

Andrian Hartog (CEO) and Steven Turner (CTO) of mySpark Technologies have had a track record of success within the field. In fact they both created billion dollar divisions for ATI Technologies Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., both graphic chip companies.

This is a new era in education and it would be great to see schools embrace the new generation of student by encouraging teachers to use devices such as mySpark's new tablet. We might even see schools absorb the cost of these tablets into tuition fees.LivePR, Image: Featured

Microsoft’s open-source CMS platform just hit version 1.0

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 01:52 PM PST

No, the title is not a joke. Microsoft’s open-source CMS platform, called Orchard, did hit its first full number release today, meaning that if you are in the market for a CMS there is one more option that you need to check out.

In case you are unfamiliar with Orchard, Microsoft first showed off the platform in November of 2009. The company then transferred (gave) the project to the CodePlex Foundation the next month, with a promise of three years’ support. The team at Microsoft that had been working on the project were gifted along with the software.

More than a year later, Orchard is now ready for real use. The CMS platform has the goal of “delivering a .NET-based CMS application that will allow users to rapidly create content-driven Websites, and an extensibility framework that will allow developers and customizers to provide additional functionality through module extensions and themes.”

The 1.0 version was announced this morning along with WebMatrix, a suite of tools for new developers looking for a compact development stack, which we brought to you last night. If you want to take a look at Orchard, you can view its documentation here.

It was a surprisingly big day for Redmond with the launch of 7 new free products: ASP.NET MVC 3, NuGet, IIS Express 7.5, SQL Server Compact Edition 4, Web Deploy and Web Farm Framework 2.0, Orchard 1.0, WebMatrix 1.0. You can read up on each of those here.ZDNet, Top Image Credit

Windows Phone 7 Now For Sale In Bahrain

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:52 PM PST

TNW Quick Hit:

If for some odd reason you were not aware of how seriously Microsoft wishes for Windows Phone 7 to become a global success, today’s news will set you straight: WP7 just launched in Bahrain.

Bahrain is a country that is not as well-known as it should be. For short context, the country has fewer than a million residents, but is very rich due to petroleum wealth. The following is a quote from Viva, the carrier in who is bringing WP7 to the island nation:

"We are delighted to be the first operator in Bahrain to deliver the Windows Mobile 7 operating system that utilises the innovations of Microsoft to increase business communications capabilities and maximise the entertainment experience of smartphones.”

Microsoft wants the world to use WP7, and will go everywhere and anywhere to make that happen. In other news, while researching Bahrain for this post, I learned that they are in fact famous for their pearls, if you were not aware.

Right, more as it comes.

Top Image Credit, Trade Arabia

Behind the mystery of Likes and Un-Likes on Facebook

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:45 PM PST

The race is on for Facebook likes. Every brand, small business and individual around the world is looking for them. But what happens after you get those elusive likes?

Nobody thinks about what happens to the likes that they already have. Do people who like your page automatically see your content? How many people are un-liking your page? Are people hiding your content or are they just ignoring you? Getting likes on Facebook is as easy as paying a few cents per like (and you can be sure at that price they are not worth much) but the real challenge is keeping them and making sure you engage with the people who like your page through lasting content. So here is how Facebook determines just what you see each time you log-in.

You Decide

One of the most obvious ways that Facebook determines what appears on your wall is by giving you the choice. On any individual post you can click on the right little x to reveal a drop down which gives you 4 options: 1. Hiding that individual post 2. Hiding all posts from that person or page 3. Un-liking the page and 4. Marking as Spam. Start posting too often or posting content that people don't like and you are only ever one click away from being removed for good.

Edgerank

While you have probably never heard of this, you may have heard of Pagerank from Google that ranks web pages. This is the very same principle.

Edgerank takes in a number of factors to determine what you see in your news feed, here is a more detailed explanation…

Affinity is a measure of the level of interaction you have with that profile. If a user visits your page or comments on your posts, you will have a higher affinity score. The same thing happens if you visit another person's profile or send them messages often. This is why as you stop interacting with certain people, they seem to disappear. They are still there, but their affinity score is too low to be much of a factor in helping them to achieve enough EdgeRank for your newsfeed.

Weight is a measure of the type of interactions that your posts and status updates are generating. We should consider ourselves lucky that Facebook even let us in on the basic factors of EdgeRank, but they won't go into much detail on how the Weight factor is determined. My thinking is that creation > tagging > commenting > liking. That is creating a post (such as on a person's or Page's Wall) likely increases the Weight of that particular post. If you are tagged in a post (such as a photo, video, or status update), or if you tag someone else, the Weight factor of the post will increase. Comments also contribute weight, and likes contribute a little. I base my theory on how the Weight factor works on the level of effort it takes for each interaction.

Decay is probably the most obvious to most people. Decay is a factor that effectively lowers the EdgeRank of an Edge as time passes. This is why your "Top News" tab appears to not be in any chronological order. If the Affinity and Weight factors of a post are significant enough, it may take a lot of time (relatively) for the Decay factor to drop it down in EdgeRank. This is why you can see posts at the top of your newsfeed that are two days old, and one that is a half-hour old below it, then 2 hours, then 30 seconds, etc.

You can read a little more about edge rank here on Quora.

This is massively important. Marketers tend to look at their total likes on a page and say "my content will hit 100,000 people when I publish Facebook status" but just because they have 100,000 Facebook likes that not the case. If the individual Facebook user has not been engaging with their content then the chances are that it might not even appear on their newsfeeds. Don't engage for a longer period of time and the like is worth even less.

Un-Likes

When you first kick off your page it's all about getting likes but as it grows it's probably just as important to start looking at un-likes. Have you posted something that people didn't like that forced them to un-like your page. Maybe they just signed up expecting something different or you are veering off topic. Maybe there is a more serious problem with your content or you suffer from competition junkies coming along and liking the page just to win competitions before un-liking the page as soon as the competition is over? As your page grows, monitor your un-likes as much as you do your new likes as they may be the fastest way of increasing your net likes.
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