
Just came across a website called Mar.com; Reviews suggest that it's not a well maintained site! I haven't gone deeper in to it but thought to share it with you.....
Trying to connect my real world with my social world. Speaking about my bike trips, tech reviews, news opinions, real life stories and gossips.
New York Times to sell stake in Red Sox — The Times is planning to sell its 17.5 percent stake in the Boston Red Sox in an effort to raise $150 million to $200 million in cash. The company may also sell The Boston Globe and About.com to gain additional breathing room. [Source: Silicon Alley Insider]
Post and Sun to share content — Longtime rivals, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun, have inked an agreement to exchange some news and sports stories. The deal doesn’t include some news topics, such as University of Maryland athletic coverage. [Source: Editor and Publisher]
USA Today to be sold on Kindle — USA Today will join The Washington Post, The New Tork Times and other large newspapers on Amazon’s Kindle e-reader device. While the final monthly subscription price has not been released, similar papers sell for $10-$15 a month. [Source: paidContent]
Pew Survey: TV still #1 source for news, Web catching up — As a news source, the Web has surpassed newspapers for the first time in the survey’s history to become America’s second most popular source of news behind television. The survey asked 1,489 adults about their news habits and also ranked the top news stories of 2008. [Source: Pew Research]
If you've been good this year, you may have gotten a new computer for the holidays. While you probably just want to start using it immediately, here are a few things you should think about now that will save you a lot of trouble sometime in the future:
Make sure you have restore disks. These are disks that will restore your computer to its original state, just in case something bad happens to the configuration. Many computers come with restore disks, others with a "restore partition" on the hard disk, and still others with software that lets you make a restore disk. Don't forget about this - take or make the disks now, and put them in a safe place where you'll know where to find them. Then when and if you need them, you'll know where to find them. I like to do this almost immediately on a new computer, right after plugging everything together, turning it on, and connecting to my home network.
Update your computer Whether its Windows or Mac, it doesn't matter: there always seems to be new patches to download. Since these often impact the security of the machine, it's downloading and installing these options is probably one of the first things you should do. It's a pain, but often worthwhile.
Set up your antivirus programs. Almost every new Windows machine comes with at least a trial version of an antivirus program or security suite. You should either enable it immediately, or completely remove it from your computer and install another one. Just an importantly, make a note of when that security suite is going to expire, so you can then either renew it, or buy a different one. (Typically most security suites are licensed for multiple computers, so if you have a license for another machine, it may be as simple as just entering the code.) Of this year's crop, my favorite has been Norton Internet Security 2009, which seems much less intrusive than earlier versions.
I wish security programs weren't necessary, but they are, at least on Windows. Mac users typically skip this step, and so far, have been mostly ok, though I'm starting to see more reports of Mac security issues.
Put your files and settings on the new machine. In this era of local networks and inexpensive external hard disks, it's relatively easy to copy your data files from one machine to another. In some cases, it's as simple as copying your My Documents folder to an external hard disk (typically look under "documents and settings" or "users" in your root or C:\ directory) and then copying them to the appropriate place on your new machine. But moving settings for other programs isn't nearly as easy. Windows has a built-in program for moving things like internet favorites and mail settings; alternatively programs like PC Mover do the job quite well.
One thing to watch for: some programs are only licensed to a small number of machines and have tools for de-authorizing them. So if you're moving to a replacement machine, rather than just an additional PC, you'll want to de-authorize the older machine. You need to be particularly careful with DRM licenses, an issue in iTunes, Rhapsody, Windows Media, and similar programs, though that's not an issue if you only have MP3 or other unprotected content. But the concept of an "authorized machine" is often an issue with higher-end programs, like Adobe's Creative Suite.
One thing to note: many new computers come with a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office. Note that the relatively inexpensive Home and Student version of Office includes a three-machine license, so again, if you have it for an older machine, you may not need to buy a new copy.
Develop a backup strategy. This is the part that most computer users put off, or implement only sporadically. But remember - eventually, all computers fail. Personally, I'm a fan of external hard drives with an automated backup program (Time Machine on Macs; most external drives come with one for Windows), supplemented with either a second external drive you create periodically and store in another location, or an online service such as Mozy for critical files. Or both. Sure it's a pain, but eventually every computer user I know is either thankful they have a backup or regretful that they don't.
Blumo, a mobile marketing agency that serves leading consumer brands and advertising agencies, is offering a free mobile marketing campaign to advertisers in the 2009 Super Bowl.
All advertisers airing a national commercial during the game are eligible and will receive free campaign development and execution services, only being responsible for messaging costs.
“In our current economic climate, marketing accountability is of utmost importance and there is no better way to quantify marketing activities in real-time than by a mobile interaction,” said Sean Bartlett, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Blumo.
Self serving elements side, adding a mobile marketing element to Super Bowl ads is a great opportunity for this firm as well as the winning company to “connect with consumers from all demographics” and to take a broadcast message and make it truly engaging.”
The Blumo team will select one recipient of the free mobile marketing campaign based on eligible inquiries and will lead the advertiser and their agency through the complete development and execution of the campaign. The advertiser will be able to choose from mobile marketing services including; auto response, digital collateral, mobile coupons, ringtones, wallpapers, trivia, voting, text to win, store locators, or any custom mobile deliverable.
Advertisers and agencies can submit their inquiry to superbowl@blumo.com.
Submissions must be received by January 7, 2009 and all eligible entries will receive a response with 24 hours.
A report from Bloomberg says that Research in Motion is trying to lure laid-off workers to its workforce, a practice blocked by a previous agreement between the two companies. RIM says Motorola is trying to expand the agreement; otherwise, the deal would have expired in August.
by Reuters
Dec 24 (Reuters) - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd sued Motorola Inc over claims the mobile-phone maker is improperly blocking it from offering jobs to laid-off Motorola workers, Bloomberg said.
RIM, in a complaint filed in state court in Chicago, asked for an order invalidating an agreement the companies reached this year not to solicit each other's employees, the agency said.
The agreement expired in August and is no longer enforceable, the agency said, citing the complaint.
Motorola is improperly trying to expand the agreement "to prevent the RIM entities from hiring any Motorola employees, including the thousands of employees Motorola has already fired or will fire," RIM was quoted as saying in the complaint by the agency.
The lawsuit comes three months after Motorola sued RIM in Chicago in violation of the agreement, according to the agency.
In that case, Motorola asked a judge to bar RIM from using Motorola's confidential information or soliciting or hiring any Motorola employees, the agency said.
The agreement is part of a February nondisclosure accord under which the companies agreed to exchange information about a confidential matter, the agency said, citing the complaint.
RIM and Motorola could not be immediately reached for comment. (Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Sharon Lindores)
Social Gaming Network is launching new versions of its Wii-like iPhone sports games that let users play against others who’ve installed the apps.
In August I was disappointed that so few iPhone applications leveraged the network effect to spread virally. I used the chess apps as an example - there were lots of them, but none at the time that let you play against other people.
The chess problem has since been solved. But I am still amazed at how few applications let iPhone users interact with each other (other than the nascent mobile social networks, which continue to gain users quickly).
But SGN, which launched a bunch of sports-themed games that turn the iPhone into a Wii-like controller (and are experimenting with the iPhone as a PC game controller, too), is starting to experiment with multi-user games where players can compete against others who have the application installed.
First up is iBasketball (iTunes link). The app launched in November, but an update this morning lets players compete with others. So far it isn’t that great - you shoot free throws for a period of time while someone else does the same, but you don’t see them. At the end the scores are compared. (In the next update, SGN says you’ll be able to watch your foe take his/her shots real time, too).
But they have something much grander planned for the next version of iBowl, which originally launched in October. The new iBowl Live will let you play against three other players, and watch their swings (or whatever its called when you roll a bowling ball).
Any Xbox user knows how quickly games get stale. Going online and playing against others on Xbox Live is what keeps people playing the same titles for months or years. I think many iPhone apps, especially games, will follow a similar path. SGN seems to be taking the lead in innovating in this space.
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Social networking is surely gonna be next hit in world of internet. Facebook gaming applications are recent examples. With SGN allowing people to play games on their mobile, that too within their social networking, I would say that this is clearly the big move. Kudos SGN, Gamerzz, get ready for action packed mobile gaming experience.
Yahoo! announces “open” strategy — In an effort to tie all of its services together under the same technology, Yahoo! has announced its new “Open” strategy. As a result, services like Yahoo! Mail will now feature applications from companies like the blogging system Wordpress, and the photo sharing site Flickr. Yahoo! also plans on adding social networking capabilities across services, which notify users of their friends’ actions. [Source: TechCrunch]
Facebook devalued — Once valued as high a $15 billion, Facebook now has a more realistic valuation of $2 billion. The social networking’s new valuation is based on the current trading of the social networking site’s common stock. Facebook has also struggled to fully monetize its massive user base. [Source: Silicon Valley Insider]
Layoffs at New York magazine — Reports place cuts at New York Magazine at around half a dozen. The cuts were done in an effort to reduce redundancy as the magazine shifts more resources to digital production. [Source: Portfolio]
AP writers and photographers on byline freeze — In order to protest management’s stance during contract talks, AP workers will withhold their bylines. The two sides are at odds over a proposed wage freeze. [Source: Editor and Publisher]
ESPN to relaunch site — In an effort to simplify its homepage, and include more advertising space, ESPN.com is unveiling a substantial redesign. The site is due to launch today, with a “formal introduction” planned for January 5th. [Source: New York Times]
India's mobile-phone demand is expected to rise
to 136 million units in 2009, up 23.9 percent from 110 million in 2008,
compared to 16.8 percent growth in 2008.
Cellular subscribers in the nation will grow to
319.9 million by the end of 2008, up 36.9 percent from 233.6 million at
the conclusion of 2007.
See this article for more details.
Surely, Telecom operators and service providers are passionately looking forward to ride on wave of 3G and WiMax. And of course, as it happens in any case, various para industries will also grow due to increasing demand. Marketers and Brand managers should also look forward to use these media tools as vehicle for Marketing and Branding of their products. Challenge for marketers here is to design campaigns focussing on Mobile as core media. Also, mobile offers dual advantage to marketers. It has personal nature of Print Media and Intrusive nature of Television media. So, if used strategically, this media can do wonders for your brands.