Abelard UK news

Redux is turning status updates and real-time feeds into an entertainment destination. Currently in private beta, the social entertainment site has already taken a page from Twitter and FriendFeed’s playbook, but now they’re introducing a TV Mode that creates an auto-generated full screen video playlist based on you and your friends’ activity.

Redux is very much like a cross between FriendFeed and Twitter, with a real-time stream of shared content flowing in from users and channels, which are akin to FriendFeed rooms for topic-based content. Streams of content are filtered for everyone, my network (just the people you follow), popular, and channels so you can toggle through different views of the photos, videos, and URLs being shared by everyone on site, just your friends, or just the channels you enjoy.

As a member, you share URLs and Redux includes the rich media content into the stream, so a YouTube URL would be watchable from the stream view. Other users can then add a comment, give props, or share an item with Twitter, Facebook, or via email and URLs (sounds a lot like FriendFreed, right?).

Redux does have a few tricks up their sleeve that make them unique. For each shared item, you can see the total number views, and there’s also a toolbar with comment, prop, and share options that opens when you click to an external site, giving you a way to continue conversations once you leave Redux (this may be a plus or minus, depending on how you feel about toolbars). The site is also extremely user-friendly and filled with content even though it’s only in private beta.

The site has also just added TV Mode, a way to watch videos in full-screen one right after the other, with a playlist that is created on the fly — in real-time — according to the tastes of members with similar interests. In TV Mode, you can skip to and from videos, and still add comments and props as usual. It’s a pretty unique way to discover video content from the web, and we find the entertainment value to be fantastic.

Eventually Redux plans to make the entertainment value their business model by bringing premium content to users for purchase. So, as an example, members will be able to buy access to view episodes of Entourage from a pay-per-month type channel. Depending on how the content is packaged, this could create an interesting subscription model where iTunes meets Hulu.

Should Redux get you in a social entertainment mood, you’ll have to wait until they open the site up to the public. Unless of course, you’re one of the first 500 readers to signup using this link.

Reviews: Facebook, FriendFeed, Hulu, Twitter

Tags: entertainment, feed, real-time, redux

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Alexandra Levit is a Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, How’d You Score That Gig?, and Success for Hire. Read her blog or on Twitter @alevit.

As a career and workplace writer, I get asked all the time: “I feel like I’m on social network overload. I’m a member of so many different sites, and I’m not sure how I should differentiate my presence on each one. For example, should I be “friends” with the same colleagues on every network?”

It’s a great question. Figuring why you’re joining social networks and how best to use them is the first step in coping with social networking overload. Here is a four step plan for helping you figure out how to keep up with your social media universe and get over that overloaded feeling.

1. Ask Yourself Why

The first step is to ask yourself why you joined each site. Was it because everyone else was doing it? Was it because you heard about it on Mashable or from one of your social networking idols and felt compelled to have a presence? If you don’t have a genuine purpose for participating in the network, you might want to think about stopping your activity there. I learned the hard way that joining too many social networks means that you can’t concentrate properly on the ones that are truly important to you.

When you’re overloaded, people may try to engage with you, but you might ignore them simply because you can’t keep up from all the contact being generated by your diffuse presence. As my grandmother used to say, “the person who tries to please everyone pleases no one.”

2. Consider Your Purpose

Once you’ve narrowed down your top networks, consider what you value about each one. For instance, do you enjoy Facebook because it allows you to keep up with your niece and nephew who are growing up across the country? Do you like that you can use LinkedIn to research individuals working at the organizations with which you’d be most interested in working? Is Twitter the best way for you to communicate just-in-time information to your core audience?

In order to avoid duplicating your information on every network, think about your purpose for being on each one and limit your activity to that purpose.

3. Create Boundaries

A typical example is that many people I’ve chatted with recently have chosen to use Facebook for family and past and present friends, where they reserve LinkedIn for business contacts. Creating boundaries between social networks allows them to post personal information and photos without worrying that they’ve shared too much with managers or direct reports or even getting into trouble with HR (disclaimer: any information that you wouldn’t be comfortable showing your grandmother or religious officiant shouldn’t really be on any social network, because on most networks, you never truly know who might be able to gain access without your express knowledge). On the other hand, they can feel more comfortable promoting themselves and their achievements on LinkedIn and don’t have to be as concerned about coming across as a braggart to friends and family.

4. Communicate Your Plan

You don’t have to be “friends” with the world on every social network, and you don’t have to import status updates and news items to every network either. My recommendation is to simply make clear to your contacts what you are using the various networks for. If a colleague asks to be your Facebook friend but you are using Facebook exclusively to keep up with your college buddies, just tell her so politely and invite her to connect on LinkedIn.

Being honest upfront very well may save you from an awkward situation later. In terms of the networks you already have a widespread presence on, consider making good use of the privacy settings (Facebook and Twitter have fairly comprehensive offerings) so that you don’t accidentally overstep the boundaries you’ve worked so carefully to create.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Make Firefox Your Productivity Machine

- 14 iPhone Apps With Push Notification for Productivity

- HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive

- 7 Productivity Tips for Freelancers and Web Workers

- HOW TO: Simplify Your Social Media Routine

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, arekmalang

Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: business, facebook, linkedin, social media, social networking, social networking overload, twitter

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

124.107.85.117: http://car.goodnano-av.com

---

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

A new book on the founding of Facebook shows how computer nerds have become the new rock stars says Andrew Keen.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Twitter has been targeted by cybercriminals in a new scam aimed at stealing users' logins and passwords for the microblogging service.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Facebook has been granted control of the Facebook.ir Iranian domain name after the United Nations ordered its owner to surrender the address.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Twitter the internet phenomenon and microblogging service which allows users to send messages with a limit of 140 characters has launched a new home page.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Although the world of business development partnerships can be complex, rife with epic contracts with tie-ins and promises, expirations and penalties for all parties, when relationships are struck that reduce customer choice, it is a telltale sign that the product or service being provided is well below acceptable standards. You see, customers aren’t stupid. They will be your product and company’s loudest advocates, more than willing to spread the word on your behalf, if you have a game-changing offering. But if you have to rely on bundling and exclusive contracts just to rope customers in, you probably don’t have something they want all that much anyway.

The recent flare-up of seething and complaining about the quality of AT&T, and the gnashing of teeth for Apple to shed itself of its telecom overlord partner handcuffs is only the latest example of business development contracts and exclusive rights being offered at the harm of customer choice. And any time you are forced to restrict choice, there’s obviously a reason you would – a very real threat that the alternative, your competition, is good enough to take your business away if it were to be played on an even field.

The dichotomy between how Apple’s products are much sought after and AT&T’s services are much loathed could not be more clear. Although I have yet to find a consistent voice of people who enjoy their long distance provider, AT&T’s failings are well-documented, from its frequent shoddy service, to its bungling of feature rollouts, failure to provision for peak loads, and general malfeasance. Meanwhile, in contrast, Apple’s product introductions may have fans sleeping outside their retail stores for days on end, just to say they did.

There’s a reason it’s called lock-in. Because customers are trapped. And being trapped is never a good thing.

Remember the brouhaha only a decade or so ago about how Microsoft manipulated its monopoly position, forcing OEM partners to carry its Internet Explorer browser as the default, over the largely-deemed superior Netscape Navigator? At a time when very few would have selected IE as the technology leader or feature leader, it became the market leader through brute force, trickery and customer handcuffs.

When businesses have a high-quality product, they don’t fear competition the way the mediocre guys do, but instead, compete on their merits. But when threatened, that’s when you can expect the ridiculous contracts to fly – from automated renewals and multi-year contracts, to early exit penalties. And when exclusivity is not threatened, but is instead encouraged, that is when you see a relaxed approach to improvements, and of course, a scale in prices. It’s the very reason there are anti-trust laws and precedents set to stop monopolies in their tracks.

It is one thing to compete through innovation, and quite another to compete through bundling and exclusivity. And even though Apple largely is seen as the better of the two players here, recent developments in Cupertino have us wondering if they too are becoming protective of their accrued market position. One only has to look so far as their recent quashing of Google Voice, their forcing of Google Latitude to be a broken-down Web application, and rumors are now flying that the Spotify application will also face a steep task to make it onto the iPhone, as it potentially competes against iTunes.

I don’t want to sound like a hippy-dippy free markets advocate. But if customers don’t like your product, the last thing you really want them doing is sticking around and bad-mouthing you to everyone they know. If you want to compete in the market, you should not be afraid to let your products win on their merits, on their price, and on their differentiation. If you have to instead do a backroom deal that makes you the default, and there are no other options, maybe you’ve got a lot more work to do in the R&D space instead of in BD.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Something odd must be in Silicon Valley’s drinking water these days. Not only did I tell you two months ago that I didn’t care what operating system you used, and not only am I typing this on the work-issued Dell laptop, but when thinking about the potential release of Apple’s long-rumored iTouch tablet, I’m not yet saving up my greenbacks and lining up at my nearest Apple Store. In fact, despite the almost equal lack of information, I just might be more likely to buy a CrunchPad, despite its not having Steve Jobs’ official seal of approval.

First of all, in order to purchase a tablet PC (or tablet Mac), I would need to find a use case for it. At times, in fact, the entire tablet market at times seems more of a solution in pursuit of a problem. With my iPhone being such an amazing device, getting me my phone calls, e-mail and mobile Web on the go, and my laptop running all my needed apps, making room for a third “in between” device seems a bit over the top.

That Apple has finally turned the corner on getting its tablet out the door, having met the demanding eye of Jobs, is very interesting. I can see benefits of going with an Apple machine immediately of having the standard Apple look and feel, industrial design, and synchronization of my data, including with the iPhone and iTunes. That’s all good stuff. But I also believe that it would be more expensive than the CrunchPad, which is rumored to be about $200-$300 less per unit, and the early concepts making it look like a giant iPod Touch make it seem as fragile as a china plate. If you thought you got scratches on your iPhone now, or you thought there was an uproar when the G4 Cube got cracks, just wait until your iTouch Grande gets split like a windshield nailed with a rock on the freeway.

So what of the CrunchPad? First of all, its industrial design mockups are equal to, if not better, than the ones I have seen allegedly from Apple so far. The CrunchPad also promises to be lower cost, and forces a new paradigm of being 100% a Web device. Yes, that sounds odd, to praise a machine for effectively limiting what I can do with it. But through those limitations, it makes us think differently (like Apple did) about how we use our electronics gadgets and consume the Web. And it has a side benefit of being from somebody I consider a peer, who is stepping outside of his comfort zone and taking a risk.

Betting on the CrunchPad is a bet for the small upstart challenger, in the same way that betting on Apple once was against Microsoft. And the CrunchPad doesn’t look like it’s going to shatter on impact.

If it’s very simple to use, I could see this low-cost Web-only device (or at least its third version) quite possibly being the first computer for my twins, who may not ever need the suites from Adobe and Microsoft like I have my entire computer-using tenure. A bet on the CrunchPad rewards the idea that bloggers can grow from simply reporting on the news to making the news. Yes, I recognize that Mike Arrington and TechCrunch are already among the most well-known blog networks out there, and have to be considered a success on their own as is, not suffering for dollars, but can you imagine bumping into the guy at a meetup in the Valley, holding the tablet from Apple when his CrunchPad offers the same specs for half the price?

While much has yet to be revealed about both devices, we just might be on the verge of seeing a market-changing event, where there are multiple serious alternatives both arriving at the same time, ostensibly for different buyers. It is quite possible that even if the CrunchPad is a superior, less expensive device, that Apple’s marketing could eat it alive. It’s also quite possible that both could fall short of expectations, or that by choosing one or the other, I could be left with a short-termed albatross. But if I can find a great reason to get a tablet, and both deliver to the specs I’ve seen today, we’re going to be saving a few hundred bucks and buying a CrunchPad. Let my iPhone be my phone and my Mac be my real computer experience, but for this new space, I’m looking for something really new.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

New government guidance is published urging civil servants to use the micro-blogging site Twitter.

Read full story and comments

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•