A year ago ReadWriteWeb published an article in defense of embargoes with an outline of how startups can effectively manage embargoes and special releases . Lately, in place of embargoes we've received a few requests to sign non-disclosure agreements. While this may simply be a rookie mistake made by early-stage entrepreneurs, NDAs and embargoes are completely different requests. Sending an NDA is absurd for a number of reasons. Sponsor 1. Confidentiality : You just sent a confidentiality agreement to a news outlet. Why the heck would you want a journalist to keep your secrets? Shouldn't we be revealing the brilliance of your products and services? 2. Legality : An NDA is a legally binding agreement between two parties. As Andrew Warner of Mixergy puts it in his post ,"I'm not signing a legal document without a lawyer." 3. Trust : In Venture Hacks' Pitching Hacks book the author advises against presenting an NDA to VCs saying, "You might think an NDA is a barrier to entry for your competitors. Instead, it's just a barrier to getting funded." You likely have competitors in the space and if you're not first to market then we've already seen them. An NDA is making you more difficult than your competitors. We'd rather write the story about the person who works with us than against us. Photo Credits: Marcin Wichary and See-ming Lee Discuss

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Why No One Will Sign Your NDA

In the past seven weeks, more than 2 million people have downloaded the beta for Microsoft Office 2010. That's a whopping 40,000 downloads per day. It's a record breaking pace, surpassing the beta release for Microsoft Office 2007. It begs the question: In the face of so many free options, why are people so loyal to Microsoft Office? Sponsor There are a few possible reasons: Microsoft has a locked in user base. It is an enterprise standard. As the story goes, no one has ever been fired for buying Microsoft. As one person replied to the question on Aardvark : "A lot of the free options simply aren't suitable for corporate use. You are basically out of luck if your free-no-guarantees Google Docs spreadsheet disappears. The free products do not have the complex formulas, interconnecting tables and client data that comes with Microsoft Office." Another person stated on Aardvark: "That is because it is the most accepted office package. Try doing business without the capability. I had to purchase it just to be able to work at home instead of extended office hours. Now I am loading Open Office on all computers I repair and send out. I also think Google is going to do a large bite into Microsoft business." How long will the loyalty last? This is where we wonder about how the events over the past few days may affect the future of Microsoft Office. Google is coming on strong with it's Nexus One . Couple that with its big push into the enterprise and you have to wonder what Microsoft is going to do to counter Google's undeniable momentum. We are still waiting Windows Mobile 7. LG did let it slip at CES yesterday that Windows Mobile 7 will be available later this year. The Microsoft Office Web Apps are in beta with limited usability. The full-featured version will be available in the Spring. It will require a Sharepoint server. The free edition will only allow you to view documents. Enterprise 2.0 applications are a whole other issue. Its user interfaces are web-oriented and mobile-friendly. This new breed of applications will be increasingly enticing to Office customers. Two million downloads is impressive but loyalty is a fickle thing. The real test is still to come. Discuss

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2 Million Downloads and Counting: Why Such Loyalty for Microsoft Office?

If you're reading this, you already know you're screwed. Someone, somewhere has been forgotten on your gift list, and you're scrambling. As per usual, we at RWW have got your back. Here are five ideas that will not only save you from certain disgrace but just might make you look a little more with it and wired than your loved ones expected. Sponsor 1) Of-The-Month Clubs Flowers, beers, books, even dog treats - for every hobby, there's a club membership that will bring the recipient monthly or even weekly gifts. With this kind of gift, you'll be the hero all year round - in fact it'll give you and the lucky recipient added incentive to communicate more often if you don't now. 2) Netflix Membership For the movie buff or couch potato in your life, this gift says you condone and embrace the cinematic lifestyle. Memberships are tiered, so you can be as budget-conscious (or as generous) as you like. 3) Pro Apps or Paid Features For all the free web apps we use and enjoy, there are often pro versions with special benefits. I've personally enjoyed a pro Flickr account for ages, and the RWW gang love the speedy, unlimited-HD goodness of our pro Vimeo account. If you have new parents in your life, try a kid-centric subscription model web service such as LilGrams . 4) Multimedia Gifts Piracy is a dying art, so for the music, movie and game aficionados on your gift list, look around the web for legitimate sources of multimedia content. Gamers will love Microsoft Points for XBox Live or similar goodies for Wii and PS3. And for the youngsters and musicians, you can't go wrong with an eMusic or similar subscription. 5) Know Thy Geek: Fonts, Domains, and Software I've been lusting after a particular domain name for a few months now. If someone knew me well enough to buy it, that lady or dude would be the most awesome Santa to date. And I won some brownie points myself for buying a special person a very special font he'd been wanting for quite some time. Likewise, if you've heard a hobbyist or nerd enthusing about a software update that might qualify as a bit of a splurge, the holiday is the perfect time to surprise him or her with a shiny, new email notification or ZIP file. These kinds of gifts show that you know the person well enough to understand and support his or her need to geek out. And what better gift is there, after all? Discuss

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5 Very Last-Minute Gifts from the Internet Hero/Shopping Mall Zero

Security is one of the biggest concern for business owners when deciding to use an online service like Google Apps . So what are the best ways to protect yourself when using it? Amit Agarwal is a professional blogger and technology columnist. He writes digital inspiration , a world-class technology blog. But Amit got hacked this week. He wrote about it on his blog, providing some excellent advice for how to protect yourself from a similar kind of attack. Sponsor Amit writes that he often receives false requests to change his password. He received a similar message this week. He ignored it. A few minutes later he started getting error messages. He could not get to his accounts. Amit had been hacked. He thinks that a hacker accessed a backup email that he had set up for his accounts. Amit had his service restored in about three hours after some calls to his colleagues at Google. He felt obviously relieved but also had that feeling of emptiness when you suddenly realize you have no control over your accounts. To help us avoid this kind of calamity, Amit summarized in five points how to make sure something like this does not happen to you: 1. Log-in to your Gmail / Google Account and associate it with a phone number: It's a simple set up. You will get confirmation via SMS. If you do get attacked, a notification will go to you that someone is trying to get to your password. 2. Create a new email address: Set up the email to act as a backup and as a secondary email for your Google Apps account. Good advice by Amit: Do not auto-forward your email as the whole purpose of setting it up will be defeated. 3. Write it Down: Get out that old-fashioned pen and paper. Write down the following information so you can verify your identity just in case you do get hacked and your secondary email gets compromised, too. From Amit: The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account. If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail. The email addresses of your most frequently emailed contacts (the top 5). The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account. The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you're not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate. 4. Run a Test! Log-out of all your Gmail / Google Accounts. Start the password recovery process. This guarantees that what you set up actually works. You want to be absolutely certain your SMS settings and secondary email addresses are configured correctly. 5. Check your IP Address: From time to time check out the IP address in the footer of your Gmail Inbox. If you see an odd one, change your Google password immediately. Knowing IP addresses may seem too technical to some but it's good information to know. You should not have to be overly concerned about Google Apps security. If people take these kinds of basic steps, the chances of getting hacked decrease considerably. Discuss

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Using Google Apps? 5 Ways to Avoid Getting Hacked

Research from Harvard Medical School has resulted in a pretty sharp SaaS learning system. SpacedEd , as it is called, uses a simple question and answer format that adapts to the person's level of knowledge. Today the adaptive technology is taking a leap into the business world with SpacedEd Enterprise , a service designed for corporations and for-profit educational groups. Sponsor SpacedEd is based upon the spacing effect, which states that people learn more effectively when presented information that is repeated over spaced intervals. Spaced Education is the company managing the technology. It conducted studies that show some pretty compelling results from training they did with doctors. For example, the SpacedEd training helped decrease cancer screenings by 26% in random clinical trials of 95 Virginia primary care providers, representing a potential cost savings of $650,000 per year in test costs alone. Here's how the service works: The learner receives course materials that are delivered electronically in a question format. People may receive questions by email, through an RSS feed or through a web site. Answers may be posted using any connected device, reflecting the nature in which people are conducting their lives. People receive two questions per day. If the person gets one of the questions wrong then it is posed again one week later. If answered correctly, the question is repeated three weeks later. If the person get it right a second time then the question is dropped from the course material. Course material is delivered to the recipient based on their knowledge level. SpacedEd Enterprise is designed for corporate clients and for-profit learning organizations. Administrators may control the access that users have to the courses. The service includes the capability to answer questions in a blog format so they may elaborate and create their own questions. SpacedEd offers a 30-day trial. Customers may use the technology on a pay-per-use basis. Discuss

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Harvard Medical School's Learning Technology Must Be Smart...Right?

Favrd , a site which aggregated the most popular starred tweets, has closed down. The site was a favorite of Twitter humorists, people who use Twitter mainly to express their wit. Favrd was the first of its kind to repurpose Twitter favorites (stars) into an aggregation site, where users could see who had "faved" their tweets, view tweets with 3 or more faves as a real-time feed, and check the most faved tweets in a 24-hour period on the Leaderboard. It was kind of like the Techmeme of funny tweets. Sponsor A similar site called Favstar launched in mid-09 ( our review ) and it appears to have taken the momentum from Favrd. Favrd was the original though, so it's disappointing to see it throw in the towel. Most people think of stars as a way to keep a personal library of favorites. But according to a regular Favrd user we spoke to, "Favrds" (people who used Favrd frequently) throw them like confetti and rarely look back at their own stream of favorites. Favrd was also different from Favstar because it only counted faves of people who were registered - although you could fave anyone. For a good overview of why many Twitter humorists liked Favrd, read this post by popular witterer Joe Schmitt ( @joeschmitt ). The site's creator, Dean Cameron Allen a.k.a. @textism , left the following suicide note for Favrd. You can tweet your condolences using this hashtag: #thankyoutextism . "Alas, stars on Twitter have become mere take-out menus hung on the doors of other restaurants. There are still lots of clever and funny things to read every day, but finding these is no longer a challenge - you already follow your sources. Sites like this one now serve mainly as fuel for emotional up-fuckedness in the guise of a game. Just an idea: next time you see something you like, write the person who made it a note telling them so. Even better, explain why. Take care! - dca" Discuss

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Favrd Shuts Down - Not Twitter's Last Laugh (Thank you, Textism)

Twitter's default URL shortening service Bit.ly announced steps today to stop phishing and malware attacks from being passed around online through its service. If effective, the effort should help a whole lot of people save face and prevent those moments of panic when you're afraid you may have lost access to your Twitter account forever. Really, though, people who take tech seriously don't fall for those kinds of things, right? Wrong! Below we offer the job titles of some of the most surprising people we've received phishing direct messages from over the last several months. It's a pretty surprising list. Sponsor May this serve as a memorial and a reminder that when new communication media emerge - even the most savvy people can get on board and fall for the oldest tricks in the book. Remember also, this could happen to any of us (apparently, perhaps) and thus the old saying "there, but for the grace of the Fail Whale, go I." "I made $300 today with http://ifortune4u.com" - and assorted variations... Bio: Market analyst following datacenters, energy efficiency, and blade servers. That's complicated stuff but probably pretty mechanical. No wonder a little human-engineering was able to overcome this person's defenses. Bio: Enterprise Comms Analyst That's Comms as in communications? Bio: Industry analyst: enterprise communications [Different person, same analyst firm as the above] Oops. Why are these analysts, some of whom charge up to $1000 per hour for their work, falling for a scam that promises relatively small sums of money? Bio: Consultant in large scale data warehousing. Looks like just a little bit of your data just got warehoused! Bio: Strategy planning at [Giant European Firm] Enterprise Communications How's this for an enterprise strategy? Know a phishing scam when you see one. Bio: Customer Interaction Analyst at [Giant Marketing Research and Analyst Firm] / Speech Reco and UI Geek / Trendspotter Oh my... Bio: an investor and co-founder of [common web 2.0 term].com; a founding partner and Vice-President in [big Web 1.0 company]...8 million page-views and 1 million unique visitors per month...with zero marketing budget. Surely there were people pulling scams like this back when you were...building a website with 8m monthly pageviews...with zero marketing budget... Want to brush up on your social networking skills, so you can stay off of lists like this? Check out Sarah Perez's post from October How to Avoid Malware on Facebook and Twitter: 8 Best Practicies . You can find the whole ReadWriteWeb team on Twitter here . You can follow us with the knowledge that we aren't going to spam you with scammy Direct Messages - or at least if we do you can write a blog post teasing us about it. Discuss

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7 High-Tech Twitter Users Who Fell For Phishing Scams