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How To Keep Track of Over 130 Top VC Bloggers

cgseo — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:35:00 +0000

We recently told you about 5 Great Blogs For Funding Advice , and now we wanted to remind you about a resource that can get you advice straight from the horse's mouth: Larry Cheng's extensive list of 131 top blogs from venture capitalists and firms - a priceless tool for any entrepreneur looking for free advice. The blogs are ranked by their number of Google Reader subscriptions, though Cheng, himself ranked 33rd, says, "there are many great blogs with fewer subscribers as the number of subscribers doesn't necessarily correlate to the quality of content." Nevertheless, resources like this are a great tool for keeping up with what the VC's are talking about, but how can one possibly manage a blogroll so large? Thankfully, there are plenty of solutions for managing RSS feeds so you can stay on top of it all. Sponsor Along with his list, Cheng offers Google Reader bundles of various breakouts of the list. If 100 blogs is too much, you can alternatively subscribe to the top 10, 25 or 50 blogs. Or if you only want to read blogs from your neck of the woods, there are location based bundles for California, Massachusetts, New York, Europe, Canada and Israel. If you just can't get enough VC blogs, there's also an option to get the whole kit and caboodle - over 130 blogs total. Whichever bundle or bundles you choose, Google Reader is an excellent way to filter through your feeds. The best solution for managing a large list is a feature Google recently rolled out: sort by magic. The more you use Google Reader, the more it learns about what kinds of stories you read, and it reflects these trends when it sorts a feed by "magic". Another tool for sorting through a heavy list of blogs is to use OPML files and filter them through PostRank - a process we described in great detail last January. In short, PostRank takes your list and creates a new feed, sifting through the noise and filtering out only the best and most popular posts. The only drawback is it takes time for PostRank to determine which posts are more popular, periodically dumping out a dozen or so posts at a time. If you really want to stay on top of the VC game, applications like Snackr can provide a scrolling marquee of your feeds across your screen while you continue to work on other things. Snackr is built using Adobe AIR, so it's compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Discuss

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How To Keep Track of Over 130 Top VC Bloggers

MailBrowser: Get More Out of Your Google Contacts

cgseo — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:57:03 +0000

MailBrowser wants to make Gmail and Google Apps more useful by offering a consolidated view of all your contacts and attachments in a browser sidebar. In this sidebar, you can quickly search for contacts, see the latest emails you received from a specific contact, add calendar events and attach notes and tags to a contact. In many respects, MailBrowser looks a lot like Xobni for Gmail. Sponsor Features MailBrowser is currently only compatible with Internet Explorer and Firefox on the Mac (OSX 10.5 and higher) and Windows, though the team is working on Safari and Chrome versions as well. The plugin offers a rich set of features , including support for multiple Gmail and Google Apps accounts and rich previews of attachments. Another nice feature is the "trend" section that appears at the bottom of the sidebar. Here, two graphs show a timeline view of how many emails you sent and received from any given contact. MailBrowser stores all your data locally on your hard disk, so no information is ever shared with the service. Because all the data is stored locally, MailBrowser also keeps a copy of all your attachments on your machine. The application also syncs all the data back to Google Contacts in the cloud, so any changes you make on one computer will automatically appear on another machine. Xobni for Gmail In many respects, MailBrowser is very similar to Xobni - a popular Outlook addon. Xobni, however, puts a stronger emphasis on giving you additional information about a contact by looking at the contact's social networking profiles. MailBrowser plans to add this functionality in a future version . Currently, the service can only display details about a contact's domain and website. More Features Coming Soon MailBrowser has big plans for the future. The company plans to offer support for more services (Yahoo Mail, Live Mail, etc.), integration with enterprise apps like Salesforce and integration with social media services like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Verdict For now, MailBrowser works just as advertised. It doesn't yet offer the rich feature set of Xobni, but the company is clearly working on that. If you have a very large mailbox, it can take a while for MailBrowser to download and index your information. Luckily, the download process starts with your most recent email, so that you can be up and running long before your last email has been downloaded. Discuss

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MailBrowser: Get More Out of Your Google Contacts

Seesmic Looks Beyond Twitter – Acquires Ping.fm

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Seesmic has acquired Ping.fm , a status update service that allows users to update posts on over 50 social networks through SMS, mobile apps, IM services and 3rd party apps that support the service. Seesmic plans to integrate Ping.fm into all of its applications in the near future. In addition, Seesmic's users will be able to send updates to their favorite social networks through Ping.fm's email, SMS and IM gateways. Ping.fm's founders Adam Duffy and Sean McCullough will join Seesmic as full-time employees and continue to work on Ping.fm. Sponsor Neither Seesmic nor Ping.fm disclosed the terms of the acquisition. It's worth noting, however, that both Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman invested in Ping.fm in December 2008. Update : Joi Ito just confirmed that this acquisition now makes him an investor in Seesmic. Seesmic's founder Loic Le Meur notes that he hopes that this acquisition will allow the company to speed up "its vision of becoming your default application to stay in touch with your friends and constantly managing your online social presence." Through Ping.fm, Seesmic's users will soon be able to easily update their status on a wide variety of social networks like Ning, Yahoo Meme, Yammer and Status.net. Seesmic already offered built-in support for Facebook, Linkedin and MySpace. According to Le Meur, Ping.fm currently has over 500,000 registered users, though the number of active users is likely far smaller. In total, Ping.fm posts about 200,000 updates per day. Seesmic's own Twhirl has offered support for Ping.fm since early 2009. Seesmic Wants to be a Lot More Than Just a Twitter Client Given Seesmic's vision, it doesn't come as a surprise that the company is interested in broadening its scope beyond Twitter. The acquisition of Ping.fm gives Seesmic all the necessary infrastructure like SMS and IM gateways to execute this vision. Ping.fm offers it's own URL shortener and gives users access to detailed statistics about how these links were used. One of the most interesting aspects of the company's recently announced native Windows client , for example, is that it includes support for a plugin architecture . This will allow developers to integrate support for virtually any social network into Seesmic. In the near future, Seesmic plans to expand this feature to all of its clients. Discuss

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Seesmic Looks Beyond Twitter - Acquires Ping.fm

Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Mobile Web & Augmented Reality

cgseo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:00:00 +0000

This week ReadWriteWeb is running a series of posts analyzing the five biggest Web trends of 2009. So far we've explored these trends: Structured Data , The Real-Time Web , Personalization . The fourth part of our series is on Mobile Web . We're including Augmented Reality in this category, as we think it's a key element of where the Mobile Web is heading circa 2009. In April we reported statistics from browser company Opera showing large growth on the Mobile Web. According to Opera, there was a 157% increase in usage of their Opera Mini web browser from March 2008 to March 2009. What's driving that growth is devices like the iPhone, new mobile operating systems like Android, and hot applications like Augmented Reality. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! Apple Dominates Mobile Web, But Android on The Rise... We named Apple our Best Bigco of 2008 , mostly due to the success of the iPhone and accompanying App Store. By most statistics, Apple is in a fairly dominant position in the Mobile Web. At the beginning of the year we reported data from AdMob (a leading mobile advertising marketplace) showing that Apple has a 48% market share of smartphone traffic in the United States. That figure doesn't just come from the iPhone, but the iPod touch too. By June 2009, Apple's share of smartphone traffic in the U.S. had surged to 64% . Perhaps more significantly though, Apple's share of worldwide smartphone traffic had increased to 47%. This is important, because internationally other smartphones were utilized much more than in the U.S. before the iPhone arrived. However, Apple can't afford to rest on its laurals. Google's mobile OS Android has been making rapid progress. According to the latest Admob statistics available, for July '09 , requests from the Android Operating System increased 53% month over month and Android now has 7% worldwide OS share. The iPhone OS dropped slightly to 45% worldwide and 60% in the U.S. Bigco Initiatives & Trendy Startups All of the big Internet companies have strong Mobile Web initiatives. We discussed Apple and Google above. Yahoo continues to push Mobile Web , which currently goes under the OneConnect brand. Microsoft has announced a number of mobile initiatives this year, including a mobile version of Microsoft Office and MySpace bringing its platform to Windows Mobile phones. Earlier this month Facebook announced a mobile expansion of their Facebook Connect platform . "Facebook Connect for Mobile Web" enables developers to add a Facebook Connect button to their apps in order to make them more social. Probably of most interest is watching the up and coming Mobile Web startups. We've had our eye on Brightkite for some time, but perhaps the trendiest startup right now is Foursquare . It's a location-aware social app for the iPhone, but only available in a limited number of countries currently. Augmented Reality Augmented reality, the addition of a layer to the world on your mobile device, has been a very hot trend this year. As we noted in August , it is in everything from mobile apps to kids toys. Many people think that "AR" will soon be talked about by everyone the way they used to talk about "social media" and "Web 2.0" before that. That remains to be seen, but there's no denying there is a lot of interest in AR right now. As we reported at the end of August, the AR apps are starting to flow into Android (the early leader in this space) and iPhone devices. We reported that the Paris Metro Subway was apparently the first AR-enabled app to be accepted into iTunes. Then came a new Yelp app with AR , which any 3Gs owner can turn on by shaking their phone. Presselite , the company that made the Paris Metro Subway app, followed up with a London Bus app for the App Store. Conclusion Clearly mobile devices are an increasingly important way to access the Web. Many of our readers have smartphones nowadays, a good proportion of them being iPhones or Android devices (our statistics prove this). And there is no shortage of mobile web applications flowing into the App Store and Android's marketplace - not to forget Nokia and other prominent mobile manufacturers. What's perhaps most encouraging however, is the entirely new class of mobile apps we're seeing. Augmented Reality is the most obvious example. It's been a big year for mobile, with much promise to come. ReadWriteWeb's Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Structured Data The Real-Time Web Personalization Mobile Web & Augmented Reality Internet of Things Discuss

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Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Mobile Web & Augmented Reality

Migrating to Windows 7? Virtualization Can Make it A Bit Easier

cgseo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:46:57 +0000

It's not easy to migrate to Windows 7 from Windows XP. Core incompatibilities just make it inherently difficult. In the next year, it is likely that the enterprise will face the challenges of this migration, especially as new workstations are purchased. The challenge is compounded by the fact that Microsoft does not offer a clear migration path to Windows 7. Further, a number of legacy applications will not work in Windows 7, no matter how well the software is moved. Sponsor Virtualization software such as that from ZInstall can make the process of switching to Windows 7 a bit easier. ZInstall offers two "TV stations," meaning the company uses virtualization so the user may see both Windows 7 and Windows XP on the desktop. This gives the user the ability to move to Windows 7 at their own pace. ZInstall migrates all applications, settings and files from the old system to the new one, with no reinstalls. The virtualization technology means every application works on Windows 7 just like on Windows XP. ZInstall supports two main scenarios: Migration between two personal computers from one with Windows XP to a new one with Windows 7. Migration to Windows 7 on an existing personal computer. Virtualization is proving to be highly popular in the enterprise. Companies such as Citrix and VMWare are making small fortunes selling its virtualization technologies. ZInstall is banking on this trend with its virtualization technology designed to take the headache out of switching from Windows XP to Windows 7. Discuss

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Migrating to Windows 7? Virtualization Can Make it A Bit Easier

Opera Feels The Need for Speed: Releases First Pre-Alpha of Opera 10.5

cgseo — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:19 +0000

Opera just released the first pre-alpha version of Opera 10.5. While most users generally only think about Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome as the major players in the current browser wars, there can be no doubt that Opera is working hard to push browser development forward as well. This latest alpha version shows that Opera has worked hard to speed up the browser. Carakan , the new JavaScript engine in Opera 10.5, is up to 7 times faster than Opera's current engine. The new version of Opera also adds a number of new features like an enhanced private browsing mode and a new graphics engine that can be hardware accelerated. Sponsor The new alpha is currently only available for Windows and OSX users - a Linux version will follow soon. Download links can be found at the bottom of this page . New Features New Features: private browsing better integration with native systems notification messages are now non-modal improvements to the search box and the address box new and improved highlighting new inline page search and password manager Besides the focus on speed - an area where Opera used to lead before WebKit based browsers like Safari and Chrome became popular - the company also included a number of other enhancement in this early version of 10.5. Windows 7 and Vista users, for example, will notice that the browser is now closely integrated with the desktop environment and makes use of features like Aero Glass in Vista and Aero Peek and Jump Lists in Windows 7. On the Mac, Opera can now make use of multi-touch gestures like the 3-finger swipe and Growl notifications. Other new features include a new "private tab" and "private window" mode that actually works far better than similar features in other browsers. You just have to right click on the tab bar and select "private tab" to start the private browsing mode in this new tab, for example. Opera also updated the look and feel for the browser's inline page search and password manager. It's All About Speed The focus here for Opera, however, is clearly not so much on bringing new features to the browser (the current Alpha doesn't even support O pera Unite , for example), but on testing the new JavaScript engine. When we spoke to Opera's CEO Jon von Tetzchner about the state of the browser during LeWeb earlier this month, he stressed that the company was very focused on improving the speed of the browser. He did stress, however, that the JavaScript engine was only a small part of this effort and that the company was also looking at other bottlenecks that are slowing the browser down. The fact that that new image rendering engine is already pre-wired for hardware acceleration is a good example for this (though the feature isn't turned on yet). We will bring you more of our interview with von Tetzchner after the holidays. In our own tests, Opera performed remarkably well and this new version clearly shows that it would be unwise to underestimate Opera in the browser wars. We should note, however, that this is still a very early alpha version and that the browser is likely to crash occasionally. Discuss

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Opera Feels The Need for Speed: Releases First Pre-Alpha of Opera 10.5

Meet the 12 Lucky Browsers European IE Users Will Be Shown Next Year

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:02:22 +0000

As part of the European Union's antitrust agreement with Microsoft , the company will be required next year to show a list of alternatives to Internet Explorer to any Windows user with IE installed as their default browser. Love or hate the government intervention, it's notable to see which browsers are about to get a big boost in user numbers. The EU says increased viability in the browser market will lead to more competition and more innovation. Here are the companies that will get a first crack at new levels of market viability in Europe. Sponsor On the Front Page - The Best Known 5 The first page of the Choice Screen, which users will be presented with when they first turn on their computers or when they click a link for it later, will feature whichever five browsers have the largest market share over the previous 6 months. Microsoft will begin showing the page to users in March, 2010. Right now the top 5 will include, in the order listed on an EU page about the program: Apple Safari - that's right, even for Windows! Google Chrome - so soon. If Chrome can grow so fast, it makes you wonder if government intervention is really needed. Of course, Chrome has been promoted prominently on Google pages. That could become part of the next antitrust issue. Microsoft Internet Explorer - gets better all the time, even with dominant market share. Couldn't the EU just require people to stop using IE 6? Mozilla Firefox - the classic that's most effectively challenged IE. In fact, it's done so pretty effectively. Too bad Chrome now runs circles around its performance. Opera - loved by mobile users, loved by Europeans. Below the Fold - The Smaller Challengers Users will be able to scroll the Choice Screen horizontally and see the next 7 most popular browsers at the time. Here's who the EU lists as those browsers today. AOL - chuckle if you will, but AOL is doing a lot of innovative work with social networks and lifestreaming these days. Maxthon - is a popular browser in China and has its sights set on topping Opera in Europe. K-Meleon - says its a super-fast Windows browser built on Gecko, the same layout engine Firefox uses. Flock - is a Mozilla-powered browser that integrates a whole lot of social features. It's got such a great feature set that we recently asked Why don't you love Flock? Avant Browser - says that it, in fact, is the browser that's the fastest. It includes an inline RSS reader and a number of other interesting features. Sleipnir - is a highly-customizable browser that says it's big in Japan. Slim Browser - a Windows browser focused on automating processes. That's the field, so far! Do you think this move will foster increased innovation? Do you think it's needed? Discuss

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Meet the 12 Lucky Browsers European IE Users Will Be Shown Next Year

Will Apple and Microsoft Join Forces To Fight Google?

cgseo — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:42:38 +0000

With Apple, you never know who is going to be evil next. Microsoft usually gets the grand prize, but as of late it appears that Google may be getting the cold shoulder for its forays into the mobile word. Apple and Google have historically been very friendly. But in recent months, the tenor of that relationship has changed. Apple rejected Google Voice for the iPhone. And now it appears that the relationship may get a bit cooler with all the talk of a Google phone. As that relationship becomes more distant, it appears that Apple and Microsoft may be warming up a bit, which may prove fruitful for the future of the iPhone in the enterprise. It may also prove beneficial for Microsoft, too, as it is also fighting off Google's efforts to win over the enterprise with its Google Apps productivity applications. Sponsor As PCWorld points out, Microsoft may be smart to team up with Apple. The iPhone is a solid, smart phone. Microsoft could do well by developing applications for the iPhone that serve its customers. Its Exchange Server and Office products still dominate the enterprise. As it is platform agnostic, Microsoft can develop applications for the iPhone that support its customers and protects its market base. Apple needs a good partner like Microsoft to make any significant dent in the enterprise. It does not have the enterprise infrastructure like Research in Motion does with the Blackberry Server. Without an enterprise management service, Apple will find it tough for the iPhone to make any deep play into the corporate world. Further, Google is showing signs that its plans to dominate the Internet is dependent on having hardware to go with its enterprise services and cloud-based operating systems. Google is reaching out to handset and netbook manufacturers. This suits Google's designs on the enterprise. Google Apps are gaining acceptance as a enterprise suite. The Android OS finally seems to be gaining some momentum. And the Chrome OS is a strong contender for the netbook market, especially as Windows 7 shows yet more signs of delays. We expect the enterprise will serve as the place where the battles intensify between Apple and Google. Microsoft has nothing to lose in teaming with Apple to fend off Google, a common rival and current evil force du jour. Discuss

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Will Apple and Microsoft Join Forces To Fight Google?

More People Now Use iPhones Than Windows Mobile

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:46:13 +0000

The latest quarterly survey by comScore reports that the iPhone just passed Windows Mobile phones in US market share, though it remains at just over half the level of the Blackberry. The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum. Sponsor Tracing links back from blog to blog the comScore phone survey of users about what types of phones they have in their hands appears first on FierceDeveloper ; comScore's press contact was unavailable for comment but mobile developers say the numbers are unsurprising. Android growth has been steady but that platform remains below Windows Mobile, Palm's WebOS and Symbian. Another report by comScore this morning though found that consumer interest in Android is growing fast and now rivals consumer interest in the iPhone. "Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone," comScore writes, "17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone. Android's prospects may fare even better in the global marketplace. "Android will continue to pick up market share, especially in the global smartphone market, because of Symbian's lack of innovation in the last 3-4 years," mobile blogger Jason Harris told us today. "Symbian is said to have 37% worldwide market share, and this will further erode as more folks give Android a look. Especially with the Nexus One coming out - a phone that is sold directly from Google and not from your carrier - that's very cohesive with the European model. Right now Android has only been available from carriers, leading to OS fragmentation. Now with the Nexus One, the phone will come from Google itself, meaning your OS updates will be direct from the source, not via the carrier, who has customized the Android OS to their liking. That might work in the US, where we are carrier-centric, but not in other markets, especially emerging markets." Discuss

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More People Now Use iPhones Than Windows Mobile

Reader Poll: Top 10 Web Products of 2009 (Last Chance to Vote!)

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0000

We're down to the final day of voting for ReadWriteWeb's reader-selected Top 10 Web Products of 2009 . You can vote for up to 10 products, from a list of 100 selected by the ReadWriteWeb authors over December. Make your picks in the poll embedded below. You can cast up to 10 votes. If you don't see one of your favorites in the list, note it in the comments and we'll count that as a vote too. The year's top 10 products, as selected by the RWW community, will be announced tomorrow. Here is the current top 10, in alphabetical order: Sponsor Adobe AIR Facebook Feedly Google Apps Google Chrome Google Maps Hulu iPhone platform Twitter WordPress What are your favorite products of 2009? (multiple choice) ( polling ) Top 100 Web Products of 2009, Alphabetical Aardvark ActivityStreams Adobe AIR Amazon EC2 Android platform Appsfire Apture Arduino Basecamp BBC's Semantic Music Project Bing Blip.fm BNO (Breaking News Online) box.net Boxee Brightkite ChartBeat Cisco Collaboration Citysense Clicker Cliqset Collecta Data.gov DBpedia Echo (JS-Kit) Evernote Evri Facebook Facebook iPhone app Fedex SenseAware Feedly Fever Foursquare Freebase FreshBooks Glue Google App Engine Google Apps Google Chrome Google Maps Google Search Options and Rich Snippets Google Voice Hootsuite HP CeNSE Hulu IBM's sensor solutions ioBridge iPhone platform Jimdo Jive Software SBS 4.0 Jolicloud Layar Microsoft Windows Azure MindTouch Mint Mir:ror MOG Moshi Monsters Mozilla Raindrop New York Times APIs OneForty Open Calais OrSiSo Outside.in Pachube Posterous Postrank present.ly PubSubHubbub Rackspace Cloud Drive Regator Ribbit RSSCloud Salesforce.com Seesmic Shazam SocialCast Socialtext Spotify StockTwits Superfeedr Tornado (FriendFeed framework) Tumblr TweetDeck Tweetie Tweetmeme Twidroid Twingly Twitter Vuze Wetoku WideNoise Wikitude Wolfram Alpha Woopra WordPress Yahoo Query Language (YQL) Yelp Zemanta Zoho CRM Discuss

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Reader Poll: Top 10 Web Products of 2009 (Last Chance to Vote!)