July 8, 2009 by admin.

In a move to increase the power of Facebook Pages, Facebook has just released a new widget that allows brands and businesses to share status updates from their Facebook Page - and get new Facebook fans - on any website.The new “Fan Box” widget, built on Facebook Connect, allows Page owners to put a piece of their Facebook Page anywhere on the web.

Facebook says the Fan Box widget is designed to help convert website visitors into Facebook fans. It’s a smart move by Facebook to make it easier for brands and businesses to encourage more of their customers to become fans of their Facebook Pages.

Unfortunately there is still no API for soliciting fans directly through applications on Facebook.  (more…)

Posted in Facebook, web 2.0, media, development, marketing | 1 Comment »

June 7, 2009 by admin.

I’m loving the Ubiquity add-on for Firefox, a (nearly) natural-language command line interface that creates user mashups on the fly. It takes advantage of the power of language and open APIs. Brilliant!If this is their alpha, can’t wait to see the beta!

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Posted in techthang, usability, web 2.0, media, development, design | No Comments »

June 3, 2009 by admin.

Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demos his cool Wii Remote hacks, which turn the $40 video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.

 

About Johnny Lee

Researcher Johnny Lee became a YouTube star with his demo of Wii Remote hacks — bending the low-cost game piece to power an interactive whiteboard, a multitouch surface, a head-mounted display … Full bio and more links

Posted in media, public policy, social ventures, ventures, web 2.0, education, techthang, innovation, maker, just for fun, jobs, small business, development, nonprofit, investing, marketing, video, Linkedin, stimulus, schools, finance, design | No Comments »

May 30, 2009 by Robert.

When I first saw the TED demo of PhotoSynth by co-creator Blaise Aguera y Arcas, I was awed and intrigued (not at that unusual).

But, as with so many novel ideas, I didn’t really grasp what it was about, didn’t fully understand it, didn’t know what to do with it at the time.

 The idea of simulating 3-dimensional movement using a database of 2-D images intrigued me.

 To me it was a novelty, for sure. I imagined it as a way to archive history — not just  to simulate 3-dimensional spaces, but to travel backwards in time.

 Virtual time travel — maybe there’s something to that idea.  Or maybe not. Forensics? Crime scene investigation? Environmental monitoring?

 That was before I carried a digital camera around in my pocket, before I posted so many images to Picasaweb that I have a hard time managing them, before I became a regular user of a social network on which people are posting new images several times a day.

 And then I began to appreciate what PhotoSynth could do with “current” photo.  After all, time is just another dimension to consider: all the photos in any database are in a sense “historical” photos.  Each photo represents a point in time, a point in 3-dimensional space, a vector (directional view), a magnification factor, etc.

 We can intentionally attend to certain dimensions and filter-out others. We can create applications that assist us in filtering-out or enhancing certain dimensions. And we can index or otherwise annotate those dimensions with metadata (”Africa trip”, “Capetown”, “Eilene”, etc.)

Posted in media, web 2.0, ventures, Linkedin, development, design | 1 Comment »

May 29, 2009 by Robert.

This video is a very clever presentation and whimsical commentary on New Media, posted by Michael Wesch, professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University in 2007.Don’t read the comments on YouTube — they’re mostly vulgar spam.I find it humorous to see that the YouTube video attracted a storm of comments *protesting* and *correcting* the author on factual matters, leading the author to post a quick revision and promise a new version “soon.” Ahem.And now the YouTube video is an epithet to good intentions in a web 2.0 world.Notice that the author was also apparently inundated with inquiries about the music in the background. I wonder if that was their intention. Many indy bands have been made famous over the years by licensing their music to be used in videos that “go viral.”Note to self: be sure to prominently credit the source of all content, or at least post a companion website somewhere which leaves a breadcrumb-trail to the information, providing Wikipedia with a verifiable “source.” And remember to use a disposable email address.

Note that the project was:

If only they’d used a more “nimble” tool for producing video, they could have responded more rapidly and continued the conversation (affordably, or even profitably) rather than being overwhelmed/bored/whatever (used-up by The Machine).But it’s still interesting, effective and fun as anthropology, if not profound.Already, the “crowd” has taken ownership, and is advising, crafting, revising, innovating, and even promoting (as I’m doing here). With 9 million+ views and counting, copied-and-translated into many languages, could this “modern antiquity” become a classic?

Posted in media, web 2.0, education, Linkedin, video, design, wordpress, marketing, RSS | 1 Comment »