Google Plus continues to get more open bit by bit, and just today made the service available to teens age 13 and up. Previously, Google Plus was restricted to people 18 and up. Along with the wave of new teenagers, Google Plus is also getting new privacy and security features--a fairly important thing if the service is to become something parents encourage their children to use.
Google is probably doing the slow rollout on purpose. This is their third or fourth wave of opening the service up. Each time it's followed by new statistics on membership, and this time will be no different. Millions of teens are going to sign up in the near future.
Google Plus Opens To Teens
Google Plus is now open to everyone 13 and up, and I'm guessing there will be plenty of takers.
This kind of news should be music to a video marketer's ears, because teenagers are among the most avid video consumers. They're also much more prone to social activity, with most of today's teenagers having grown up with mobile devices, Facebook, and Twitter.
The influx of teenagers 13 and up to Google Plus means the demographic will change almost overnight. It should also make Google Plus a more attractive social video marketing tool for brands and businesses--particularly those that create content known to appeal to teenagers: I'm thinking about action-oriented brands like Go Pro and Red Bull, music videos and music industry brands, movie trailers, etc.
Domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has taken a stronger stance in terms of the "Stop Internet Piracy Act," or SOPA, saying that now, it doesn't just "not support it," it opposes it. Reading between the lines makes the opposition appear very weak, though, but it seemed to work: GoDaddy.com saw a net influx of domain name registrations on Thursday, Dec. 29, which was supposed to be "Dump GoDaddy Day."
"'We have observed a spike in domain name transfers, which are running above normal rates and which we attribute to GoDaddy’s prior support for SOPA, which was reversed,' said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman. 'Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.'"
So GoDaddy has gone from supporting SOPA, which critics say could eventually lead to Internet censorship, sort of a U.S. version of the Great Firewall of China, to "not supporting it" (but not being against it, either), to opposing it. Read the statement above carefully, though.
The key point is "Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders." It doesn't oppose SOPA for any reason other than that there isn't consensus. It's not because it opposes SOPA per se, which organizations like the consumer-protecting EFF do.
That fine print seems to have been missed by most. GoDaddy had a positive day, and not narrowly positive, either. It gained 20,748 more domains by the end of the day than it lost. There were nearly twice as many incoming transfers as outgoing transfers (27,843 to 14,492) and more new registrations than there were deleted domains (43,304 new registrations, 35,907 deletions).
SOPA, and its companion bill in the Senate, PIPA (Protect IP Act), are "blacklist bills," legislation that would "stop" piracy by blacklisting sites "accused" of such activity. However, as the EFF says:
"After all, these bills violate the Constitution, undermine your free speech, and threaten whistleblowers and human rights. The legislators don’t understand how the bills would modify the architecture of the Internet, but they won’t listen to the opposition of the architects who designed the network itself. Frankly, these bills are so bad they can’t be fixed: Internet blacklist bills must be killed."
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up SOPA again when it reconvenes in 2012; PIPA will be considered in the Senate in late January.
Despite the influx of broadband into homes, productivity is set to drop on Cyber Monday 2011, according to a Careerbuilder survey. Half of those surveyed will use the broadband at work to perform holiday shopping, down slightly from last year's 52 percent.
However, the amount of surfing per person will make up for the slight drop in the number of workers surfing on the job. 34 percent of those shopping at work will spend an hour or more doing it (up from 27 percent in 2010). 16 percent will spend two or more hours (up from 13 percent in 2010).
The survey was conducted between August 16 and September 8, 2011, among 4,384 workers scattered among 2,696 employers, by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder. Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, said,
"Most companies assume their employees use some of their break time on the Internet for shopping, checking social networks, and other general browsing, but when it starts adding up, workers need to be aware of company policies and any potential consequences. With more companies limiting or restricting online activity, e-shopping season is as good a time as any to be mindful of our Internet usage at work."
Additional information from the survey:
General Internet Use:
Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of workers spend at least "some time" conducting non-work related Web searches in a typical workday; nearly one-fourth (22 percent) conduct non-work related Web searches at least five times a day.
In 2011, 22 percent of employers fired someone for using the Internet for non-work related activity, about the same as 2010.
7 percent of human resource managers surveyed have fired an employee for holiday shopping.
54 percent of employers block employees from accessing certain websites, which is up from 50 percent in 2010.
Personal Email Use:
Sixty-one percent of workers send non-work related emails during their typical workday, up slightly from 59 percent in 2010. Nineteen percent send more than five personal emails a day.
28 percent of employers monitor emails, which is about the same as 2010.
8 percent of employers report having fired someone for non-work related emails.
Social Media Use (such as Facebook):
More than half (56 percent) of workers who use social networks check their profiles at least once during a typical work-days, which is up from 49 percent in 2010. Of this group, around one in seven (15 percent) spends at least one hour a day browsing their social networking site of choice.
Workers need to be especially careful of what they post about their company publicly (as we have seen).
One-third (32 percent) of employers prohibit employees from communicating about the company on social media.
25 percent of employers report adopting stricter policies during the last year in regard to employees communicating about company on social media.
According to the survey report, there is a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-1.48 and +/-1.89 percentage points, respectively. Subsamples as listed above have a higher, but varying, sampling error.
Virtual keyboard maker Swype has announced another influx of money into its coffers, with another $2.5 million in funding coming from existing investors.
The new funding, from the venture capital arms of Samsung, Nokia and DoCoMo, among others, completes a round of financing that began with $3.5 million in new money from Ignition Partners, which was disclosed back in March. Swype has turned profitable in recent quarters, but CEO Mike McSherry said that the funding will help the company's efforts to bring its virtual keyboard to more platforms.
That will, the company said, include some Windows 7 tablets. Swype already ships preinstalled on more than 50 percent of new Android devices. Unlike the iPhone, it's easy for alternative keyboards to be installed and used on Android devices. Some have suggested, perhaps only half kiddingly, that if Apple really wanted to put the screws to Android it would purchase Swype.
Swype's software allows users to trace their finger along a virtual keyboard, spelling out a word. Last month, the company announced version 3.0 of its software, which adds predictive text as an input option. It also adds the ability to select a word from a horizontal list as opposed to a popup window, as well as a movable, resizable version of Swype for Honeycomb tablets.
Since Nokia is an investor, Swype is hoping that it will land on some upcoming Windows Phone devices. Quite naturally, it also hopes for an eventual landing on iOS, but in order to do that, it would have to either be part of the platform, or else Apple would need to allow more integration with the OS than it has previously been wont to do.
Singapore has a conscript-based military (i.e., they have a draft), so they don't have to "entice" recruits to join. Nevertheless, new recruits to Singapore's military will get a primo perk. In addition to their uniform and a rifle, they'll get a standard issue iPad.
Singapore's defense ministry said on Monday that about 8,000 of Apple's hit tablets will be issued to new recruits starting in November. So that current military personnel don't feel left out, the ministry said that in 2012 it will issue more of the devices to other service personnel.
The lowest-cost iPad 2 costs about $538, which isn't too bad considering it would cost $499 in the U.S. Some countries see a much more considerable premium.
It's not about fun, though. It's serious military business. Troops will be able to use the iPad 2's built-in cameras to take photos and video clips in the field, which can be uploaded to the an online platform called LEARNet. Soldiers can use these photos and videos to carry out post-mission assessments [within the limitations of the rather lame iPad 2 camera resolutions, we would add].
Soldiers will also be able to use group chat and instant messaging to communicate with their commanders. In addition, the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) is working with private contractors to create custom-made apps for personnel.
Defense chief Neo Kian Hong explained the SAF's iPad 2 adoption as follows:
"By exploiting the use of popular and current information and communications technology, we are able to harness our advantage of today's technologically savvy servicemen."
Since Singapore's military requires every able-bodied male citizen and permanent resident aged 18 and above to undergo two years of military training, there is always an influx of young people joining the SAF. It will be interesting to see if the recruits show more eagerness to report, with an iPad 2 dangled in front of them.
Google TV hasn't exactly been lighting up living rooms with Internet-enhanced television goodness, but an influx of fresh software might be in store. Google has just acquired Sage TV, which has been producing its own proprietary DVR software since 2002.
Sage TV's software runs on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Google TV doesn't have DVR or placeshifting functionality, which Sage TV provides (placeshifting = Slingbox, basically).
No financial terms have been announced. So far, it's only been announced via a post on Sage TV's website.
However, although Sage TV has been reasonably successful on its own, the company said that "By teaming up with Google, we believe our ideas will reach an even larger audience of users worldwide on many different products, platforms and services."
Actress Sneha was hardly in the news recently due to the influx of new faces, but she is back on the forefront of Kollywood with her next big budget bilingual (Tamil-Malayalam) Vande Mataram with mega stars Arjun and Mammooty. The actress is banking on the movie to regain the ground she lost in Kollywood. Vande Mataram, an action thriller with Arjun and Mammootty playing cops, fighting terrorists who infiltrate into South India, is scheduled to release on September 10th.
There are tons of sites that track savings online, and now there is in influx of sites doing the same for local deals (like Groupon, Fatwallet's forums, or even Twitter). Add in the deals that come in the mail (and often get "junked") and it's hard to parse. That's where The Dealmap comes in.
Just launched, The Dealmap aims to mashup all these sources, including Groupon, local deals from newspapers, and more. The Dealmap has also published publicly available third party APIs which developers can use. According to its press release, a number of partners, including WHERE, AmericanTowns, BigTent, Drinksin, eviesays.com and Wantsa, have already signed up to use The Dealmap's APIs. For those interested, The Dealmap shares revenue with the deal providers.
You can even connect with Facebook Connect and be a Deal Hero. What's that? A Deal Hero contributes local deals, and by doing so, can potentially earn gift certificates, points, and badges. There's even a leaderboard.
Meanwhile, The Dealmap will also launch a mobile app for many of the latest smartphone platforms. While only mentioning the ubiquitous iPhone in its press release, the website notes Android and BlackBerry apps coming as well.
How well does it work? It works quite well, honestly. You can filter the results to a specific category or show all, though it might be nice to be able to filter more than one category. You can also search for types of deals (kid-friendly, expiring soon) or by keyword. The DealMap is also tweeting local deals for 20 different cities.
The Dealmap is owned and operated by Center'd Corp. Jennifer Dulski, co-founder and chief executive officer of Center'd said in a statement:
"The confluence of consumer demand for local deals, location-based services and social media presents a very large market opportunity, and we are well positioned to capitalize on these trends. Our local expertise, combined with our ability to integrate hundreds of partners, has enabled us to create an exciting and intuitive way for people to find and share great local deals.”
We've yet to find an area with say, coupons from Valpak, that bundle you get in your mail, but The DealMap is reportedly aggregating those deals as well. There's a social networking aspect to it, with Deal Heroes, and as those Heroes emerge, this service might become the Yelp of coupons.
Recent Comments