Joining the cavalcade of companies jumping on the open data bandwagon, LinkedIn has now joined Facebook, Google, Plaxo (announcement here) in joining the DataPortability Work Group.
LinkedIn has worked hard to become open since announcing their own open platform in June 2007 in response to Facebook, then becoming an initial OpenSocial launch partner in October 2007.
December Comscore data is now available, and it shows a steep rise in traffic for AOL Finance. They’ve passed both Yahoo and Microsoft to take the top spot in terms of unique visitors. AOL rose from 12.2 million unique visitors in November to 13.5 million in December, a 10% increase. Meanwhile Yahoo dipped from 13.7 to 13.2 million unique visitors, and MSN Money dipped from 11.6 to 11 million visitors. The combined decrease in Yahoo’s and MSN’s audiences is almost equal to the gains by made by AOL.
AOL Finance also saw 335 million page views, slightly more than second place Yahoo Finance with 333 million. This is actually a slight drop from November, although that may be a good thing, too. Many of the changes allow users to get updated information without page refreshes, so page views are more efficient and users are happier.
AOL seems to have made the right changes in their new beta. It will replace the existing site in the next six weeks or so.
Is Ruby on Rails the next Java? Benchmark Capital thinks so. It just invested $3.5 million in Engine Yard, taking its entire series A round. Ruby on Rails is an increasingly popular Web application programming environment because it is dead-simple, open-source and very fast. The downside is that it is not always as robust as more mature frameworks such as Java.
In fact, Ruby on Rails is getting a lot of the same criticisms that Java got in its early days. Namely, that it can’t handle millions of users or handle huge transaction loads. “Everybody considers it a great prototyping language, but not serious enough for enterprise quality environments,” notes Benchmark partner Mitch Lasky. But Engine Yard wants to change all of that by providing a hosted environment for Ruby-on-Rails apps that is is stable, kept up to date, and lets the applications scale to millions of users. Combine that with the simplicity of Rails, and Lasky thinks he has a winner:
Rather than it being top-down the way Java was, Rails has grown up out of the grass roots of the programming community. Rails allows you to innovate and iterate so rapidly that it has accelerated the rate of innovations.
Rails is making it fun to program Web apps again. Java is not fun. Happy programmers are productive programmers.
Engine Yard wants to be to Ruby on Rails what Red Hat is to Linux. By figuring out the best, enterprise-class implementation of Ruby on Rails, and keep it maintained, its customers don’t have to worry about it. Engine Yard already hosts Ruby on Rails apps for 250 customers, including Kongregate and divisions of several Fortune 500 companies. Competition could come on the hosting side from companies like Joyent, and on the technology side from Sun’s own JRuby initiative, which is a Java implementation of the Ruby programming language.
OSLO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp made a $1.2 billion offer to buy Norwegian Web search software company Fast Search & Transfer in a deal that would help the world's largest software maker expand into the market for business-oriented search. read more
Jan. 7 - The British consumer magazine Computing Which? has ranked Bebo as the best social networks, ahead of rivals Facebook and MySpace.
The ranking is based on the findings of a single anonymous expert who tested 10 popular social networking sites.
Firefox has tons of extensions, and when you drill them down to specific items, such as Google Maps, it’s amazing how powerful of a tool this open source browser can become. Today, we’re serving up seven tools and add-ons that will make using Google Maps in your Firefox easier and much more fun.
Advanced URL Builder - Lets you pre-enter the complex part of a URL, and then just copy the part you want to query. For instance, with Google Maps, enter the first part of their URL, copy the location listed on a webpage and immediately get the info from Google Maps.
BlueOrganizer - BlueOrganizer will recognize different types of content in a page and give you smartlinks based on what’s there. For example, if it’s an address it’ll give you a link to Google Maps to let you go there directly.
GDircections - Highlight any address in a web page and it can map to your edited home addresses. Will also add the search engine selections for the top right of your Firefox.
GMiF (Google Maps in Flickr) - This add-on brings Google Maps support for Flickr to show geo-tagged images in Google Maps.
LookLOCAL Toolbar - Enter any address into the toolbar an get instant comparisons between Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Windows Live Local. You can receive driving directions, satellite images and more.
Minimap - A robust addition to your sidebar that lets you drag-and-drop an address, geotag, and more into the sidebar and Google Maps will pull it up for you.
PackageMapping.com - Have you ever wondered how your mail order gadgets get to you? If it was shipped via UPS, USPS, DHL, or FedEx, this extension will let you highlight the tracking number, right click it, and get a visual map of where your package is and everywhere it has been in-between.
Apparently, Microsoft has no shame when it comes to borrowing Apple’s best ideas. This time, though, it’s in mobile phones. It looks like Microsoft is going to push a touch-screen interface in a big way. Screen shots and specs of the next version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 7, are being leaked. WinMo 7 appears to support a gesture interface that will let mobile consumers flick their fingers to slide through images and applications, zoom in and zoom out, and even shake the cell phone to do things like shuffle music. (Note that these features are from a purported internal Microsoft document from last summer and may not actually find their way into Windows Mobile 7, but we are hoping that they do).
Not everything in WinMo 7 is copied from the iPhone. The shaking bit is new, and when the screen is locked, you will be able to doodle on your cell phone screen. But there is no denying that Microsoft is taking its cues from Apple on the user interface of its mobile operating system. Will history repeat itself with Microsoft running away with the prize here, or will Apple strike back by licensing its mobile operating system to other cell phone manufacturers?
Motorola has acquired Singapore based music downloads site Soundbuzz.Soundbuzz offers online music purchases throughout the South East Asia and Oceania region and currently has partnerships with Hutchison 3, Motorola, Airtel, SingTel, M1, Optus Zoo, Telstra/ BigPond Music, Microsoft (Windows Media Player 10), Creative Technology and Sony BMG. Downloads from the Soundbuzz retail store sell in Australia for $1.69 AUD ($1.47) per single.
Motorola said it would use Soundbuzz to expland its MOTOMUSIC service into India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
One word of warning though, if you do wish to check out Soundbuzz, don’t try it with anything other than Internet Explorer.Source: Fox Business
