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- Viacom Seems To Be Misrepresenting YouTube Founder’s Call To “Steal It!”18 March 2010, 11:16 pm
We're still going through these recently released YouTube/Viacom litigation documents, and it's becoming clear that we can't take everything that's being said by either party at face value (as if we didn't know that already). We've come across a good example. In Viacom's document Statement of Undisputed Facts, it presented the following seemingly damning passage that indicates that YouTube co-founder Steve Chen was advocating pirating movies (a quote that's now appearing in quite a few news ar...
- An Experiment: Putting The Audience On Stage (For Real) At TechCrunch Disrupt18 March 2010, 8:48 pm
There are good things about conferences and there are bad things about conferences. One of the bad things is how little the audience gets to participate directly in the content being created. Sometimes there's a question and answer period at the end of a panel where people line up at a microphone to ask questions. But that's usually it. Other than booing and applause, and of course the back channel on Twitter, there's not much of a feedback loop. That's partially a good thing, of course. A room... - Notifo Is A Simple Mobile Notifications Platform For Anything18 March 2010, 8:09 pm
I'm hopelessly addicted to Push Notifications on the iPhone. Unfortunately, the system is flawed, in that the more notifications you get, the worse the experience is because it can be hard to manage them all. And one reason I always have the iPhone on me, even when taking around an Android phone, is that there's no good way to get my notifications on another device. A new startup may offer a solution for both of those problems. Notifo is a Y Combinator-backed company launching today. While it's... - Plastic Jungle Raises $7.4 Million for Gift Card Marketplace18 March 2010, 8:07 pm
Plastic Jungle, a marketplace for gift cards, has secured $7.4 million in Series B funding, led by Redpoint Ventures with Shasta Ventures Bay Partners, First Round Capital and other investors participating. This brings the company's total funding to $13.4 million. Plastic Jungle lets you buy, sell and exchange gift cards online. Instead of receiving cash for your gift card, Plastic Jungle also lets you trade the value in for an Amazon gift card or give your money to charity. Users can receiv... - More News about Omidyar’s Peer News18 March 2010, 7:27 pm
I'm at the NewsMorphosis Conference in Hawaii today locked in a day of debates about the state of news quality and how the hell we find a business model to keep paying for it. It's a big issue locally-- earlier this year three of Hawaii's five largest TV news stations merged operations and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin is merging with the other daily paper the Honolulu Advertiser, resulting in plenty of layoffs and general civic concern. So it's fitting that the conference ended with a talk by J...
- Twitter’s commercial accounts may finally land at Chirp conference next month18 March 2010, 9:00 pm
Commercial accounts for businesses on Twitter may finally make their debut next month at the company’s inaugural developer conference, Chirp. Twitter’s head of product management and monetization, Anamitra Banerji, will be leading a session on commercial accounts in the afternoon at the conference. Last summer, co-founder Biz Stone told us the company was planning to launch a commercial layer over its ecosystem by year-end. They’re several months behind, but it looks like it ma... - Gift card swapping startup Plastic Jungle raises $7.4M18 March 2010, 7:56 pm
Plastic Jungle, a site where you can sell unwanted gift cards or buy those cards at a discount, has raised $7.4 million in a second round of funding. I actually wrote about new site with a similar idea called CardPool just a few hours ago. Both CardPool and Plastic Jungle are part of a larger category of gift card marketplaces, which also includes Swapagift. One of Plastic Jungle’s more attractive features is the ability to not just sell a card for slightly less than the official dollar va... - YouTube founder pushed for growth “through whatever tactics, however evil”18 March 2010, 7:47 pm
Steve Chen, co-founder of the wildly successful video sharing site YouTube, sold the site to Google in October 2006 for $1.65 billion. No doubt he’s since internalized Google’s “Don’t be evil” ideology, at least as a talking point. But in January of that year, Chen’s thinking was exactly the opposite. In the text of an instant message to a YouTube product manager, he used the e-word. Here’s the quote from a court brief filed by Viacom in that companyR... - SXSW wrap-up: Maybe it really does suck now18 March 2010, 7:18 pm
San Franciscans complain that Burning Man used to be better. New Yorkers claim that everything used to be better. While it’s no surprise that some attendees of the annual South by Southwest Interactive conference this past week in Austin, Texas, deemed SXSW to be “over” compared to previous years, what’s interesting is the why. The complainers cited three major themes. Bigger event This year’s Interactive portion of SXSW (there are also separate multi-day events ar... - Microsoft rumored to allow external USB storage on Xbox 360s18 March 2010, 7:18 pm
Microsoft is preparing a software update that will allow Universal Serial Bus (USB) mass storage devices to be used with the Xbox 360, according to a report by Joystiq. This will allow gamers to store and load saved games via external USB storage devices. Until now, users had to use Microsoft Xbox 360 hard drives or flash memory units, also from Microsoft. The change is supposed to happen with a software update this spring. Joystiq said a document authored by a senior software development engin...
- Generating Real Estate Leads Through Social Media18 March 2010, 5:43 pm
The question constantly being asked by agents within my brokerage is, “how do I use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter for real estate lead generation?” At a recent Inman conference I had the pleasure of sitting in on a presentation by Bill Tancer of HitWise (check out his book Click). During his talk Bill [...]... - Mobile Real Estate Tagging: Interactive 2D Barcode Reader18 March 2010, 12:24 pm
I wanted to share something with you today that is really, really cool. It’s Mobile Tagging: the Interactive 2D Barcode Reader from Microsoft. What if your potential customers (both buyers and sellers) were walking around with a 2D barcode scanner in their pocket? Well, they are. And the next question is how can this impact [...]... - Welcome Mike Mueller, GEB’s Newest Contributor17 March 2010, 5:00 pm
If you’ve spent any time at all in the real estate social media and tech space, you’ve run into Mike Mueller. I remember my first time very well. He pointed a video camera at me (without warning) and started interviewing me at an event in San Francisco. He’s become a good pal over the years. Mike [...]... - Links For Real Estate Geeks12 March 2010, 5:12 pm
I’ve decided to carry on with Drew’s “Links for Geeks” feature. I’ve identified a few gems from my feed reader that perhaps you haven’t seen in the past week. How To Set Up a Self Hosted WP Blog Steve at Zeek Interactive (The Company Behind Real Estate Shows) has a concise and simple outline for hosting your [...]... - Ya’ll Come On Down. RE Barcamp Austin – Featured Tech Event10 March 2010, 1:51 pm
What the heck is a Barcamp? I’ve been helping answer that question for a couple of years now. Luckily enough, you will find a plethora of information on the REBC web site. The short of it? It’s a free event where people show up and set up the topics of discussion and those who will [...]...
- Is “Free” MLS Finally Here?26 February 2010, 3:24 pm
Over ten years ago, I recall being in a presentation at NAR’s mid-year conference and hearing Gregg Larson from Clareity Consulting predict that MLS services would soon be “free”. I don’t recall all the details, but I believe Gregg was predicting that advertising would replace the per member per month revenue model pervasive in most [...]... - New RPR Draft License Agreement Includes Right to Resell Listings, Just Not to Moving Companies22 February 2010, 4:36 pm
RPR has posted the latest draft of the license agreement they are proposing to MLSs. The draft attempts to address some of the concerns that have been discussed publicly and privately. From my review, the draft still does not live up to earlier statements that RPR would not disclose listing-level information. Instead, 1.w attempts (I [...]... - Conflicts Between RPR’s Public Statements and Proposed License19 February 2010, 4:02 pm
Brian Larson does an excellent service to the MLS industry presenting on his blog his analysis of the RPR license agreement, which he concludes: RPR has been making promises about how data will be used (on its blog, in presentations, etc.) without incorporating those promises into the license agreement. MLSs that want to be [...]... - FBS’s support for IE6 is coming to an end30 January 2010, 12:14 pm
We’re about to release a new customizable dashboard for flexmls Web, but the upgrade won’t be available to users of IE6. Why is this? Because IE6 is eight years old and is so limited in its support for web standards that it’s impractical, if not impossible, to develop web applications that take advantage of the [...]... - Northwest Montana Association and MLS Is Seeking Corporate Executive Officer29 January 2010, 2:37 pm
Kathleen Shulte from the Northwest Montana Association of REALTORS is retiring this coming summer after a long and illustrious career as NMAR’s Corporate Executive Officer. Kathleen was awarded the 2009 Terry McDermott Community Leadership Award from NAR and has led NMAR to be one of the premier Associations and MLSs in the country. Whoever takes [...]...
- Crazy and/or Unique Local Content Maps for Your Blog16 March 2010, 7:14 am
Google Maps Mania is a mashup-of mash-ups. The site collects and displays map mash-ups created with the Google map API. There are maps of just about anything; historical spots, celebrities, beer spots, milk farms. You name it, it’s probably there. Embedding some unique or useful…... - How You Can Make A Video Blog – cheap, quick & easy15 March 2010, 12:08 pm
A while ago I decided that I wanted a web site that was just for my videos. I have video embedded in blog posts on my main real estate site, but I wanted a clean looking page where people could go and just watch my content.…... - FINALLY – You Can Add Pictures and Video to Foursquare!!10 March 2010, 11:02 am
One of the biggest lacking functions of the ever growing in popularity Foursquare check-in app was the inability to add pictures as you checked-in. A glaring missing and fundamental element, one might even say. Finally, things have changed. Pickchur and 39 Inc. have paired up…... - Google Maps Finally Allows Flickr and Picasa Photos3 March 2010, 7:07 am
Google has finally opened up their geo-tagged photo source for Maps and Street Views from the irritating and cumbersome Panaramio to Flickr and Picasa. (official Google Release). Geo-tagged photos are tagged by you (automatically or manually) with the location of a photo. Google takes that…... - How To Get Your Picture To Show Up in Comments on Agent Genius27 February 2010, 7:00 pm
This will only take a second… Ever wonder why some people comment on Agent Genius (and other websites) and there is a picture of them next to their comment? It’s not because they gave anyone money, because they have any superpowers or because they’re…...
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