By Media Team

June 24th, 2008

Faceparty to users: STFU or GTFO, WG2Z (We're Going To the Zoo)

Faceparty to users: STFU or GTFO, WG2Z (We're Going To the Zoo)

Coming up with a headline for this one was really tough without using profanity, so I decided to go with the tried and true internet acronym approach. Faced with users complaining on not getting “free cool tools” when they were told not to expect them until later this week, Faceparty decided to shut the entire site down for a day out of frustration.

Their message: “#@*% The Haterz. Sowwy dudes, but some of you have pissed us off so much today that we’ve shut the whole site down and #@*%ed off to the zoo.” The owners of the site posted a long profane tirade on the front page against the users who continually complain, and explained that they own the site and provide it to free for users, not for profit and at their expense. They didn’t sell out to major corporations like News Corp. and Microsoft, as MySpace and Facebook did respectively, although their claims that they don’t make any money are probably exaggerated (i.e. the cost of bandwidth alone on a site that size would be nearly impossible to run without them making money).

My question: is it preferable to be on a corporate-run social network or a site run by hobbiests that is prone to bursts of human emotion?

You would certainly never see MySpace or Facebook close for a day and forego all of the ad revenue from that day and potential damage to the brand. The situation illustrates the irony of social media: we expect user generated content, but when the user-providers react in a very human way, we get angry and complain. On both sides, we need to recognize that we want the same things. From the users view, they like and care about Faceparty, if they are on there complaining, and they want to be happy. And from the providers view, they want a happy community.

Six million people today are without the social networking service that they signed up for, and that is ridiculous. It is all because a few people couldn’t treat each other with respect. The people in charge of sites like Faceparty need to encourage discussion and complaints to constantly improve the site, and the users need to exercise patience. As more content moves toward social media, people will have to become more aware than ever of the individual responsibility they have for making everyone’s lives better.

By PromptLondon

June 20th, 2008

Celebs and the startup

Celebs and the startup

Actor Will Smith recently invested an undisclosed sum into PluggedIn, a new start-up. As the The Telegraph reports, Smith is just one of many super-celebs who are ploughing their cash into online start-ups. Comedian Will Ferrell is another. Ferrell launched a comedy video site, FunnyorDie.com in 2007, and is now pumping money into a visual search site, Searchme.com (still in beta, but looking quite impressive).

And the list goes on. CSI: Miami thespian David Caruso is CEO of software start-up Lexicon Digital Communications. Ashton Kutcher is the creative director of an internet telephony company.

The article reveals that popular artists and musicians are getting in on the trend too. Rap superstar Nelly has a stake in a site called MusicNation, and MC Hammer has established Dancejam.com, a video site with a strong focus on dance.

So what’s the attraction of investing in online companies? For some it’s gambling. Peter Gabriel, of Genesis fame, has invested over £3 million into online businesses, and claims he has just about broken even. For others it is a vanity exercise. MC Hammer, has recently stated that his interest in the internet is “purely ego-driven.”

Perhaps it’s also about getting extra influence. In a recent BT-commissioned report, nearly one in three Britons believed that celebrities who have embraced technology, like Lily Allen or Ricky Gervais, have become more powerful as a result.

Whatever the reason, investing is a risk, and I doubt making money is a contributing factor. Apart from Gabriel’s reasonable success, most online start-ups fail to generate any significant profits.

By PromptLondon

June 20th, 2008

PayPal and Mr Site join forces

PayPal and Mr Site join forces

Mr Site, a web design software package for those who don’t want to drown in a sea of HTML, announced earlier in the year that it was planning a year-long campaign of customer events in collaboration with PayPal. Those using the software to create their own website can add a PayPal shopping cart, hence the partnership.

Each invite-only event of the roadshow will feature a panel of two business experts taking part in discussions on topics such as creating a successful website and the future of online payments. At the launch event this month, Levi Roots of Reggae Reggae sauce fame (Dragons’ Den winner) talked about his success and how he used Mr Site to create his website. Dates and locations for upcoming events will be available soon – budding entrepreneurs should keep an eye on the site for more info.

By Media Team

June 19th, 2008

One Nation under Green – Boston celebrates the Celtics' 17th Title

One Nation under Green – Boston celebrates the Celtics' 17th Title

This morning you would have thought it was St. Patrick’s Day in Boston by the sea of people adorned in green. This was a different kind of Celtic pride, it was the victory parade to honor the Boston Celtic’s win over the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 NBA finals. It’s been 22 years since the Celtics won their last championship title and today the city erupted after clinching the city of Boston a 17th championship.

Chants of “17” and “We Beat LA” echoed throughout Copley Square, as a diverse group of Celts fans came together to cheer on their favorite players such as Pierce, Garnett, Allen, Powe, and Posey.

The team’s NBA final series Most Valuable Player, Paul Pierce a.k.a. The Truth – came to the Celtics 10 years ago with promise to bring the Celtics another championship title. Over the past decade it’s been blood, sweat, and tears for this team coming close by making it to the Eastern Conference playoffs but never making it far enough in the series, and not for lack of trying.

I have been a fan of The Truth since day one – and truly felt proud of him and all of his efforts in this championship series. His dedication and commitment to Boston and his team have been amazing. I’ve always had my Celtic Pride, through the ups and downs, however today represents a special day that I will never forget! It’s one I’ve been hoping and wanting for a long time!

Go C’s!! Here’s to the Boston Celtics, 2008 NBA Champs!

By PromptBoston

June 18th, 2008

The AP Must Want Fewer Readers

The AP Must Want Fewer Readers

If there’s one main lesson that companies of all sizes need to learn about the evolving internet, it’s that you should never ever underestimate the power of angry bloggers. Dell learned this lesson the hard way a few years back, but has rebounding miraculously by engaging with the angry bloggers.

Well now bloggers have found a new enemy in none other than The Associated Press. Last week The AP sent notice to the Drudge Retort, a social news forum where any user can submit content, to remove multiple pages due to a surprisingly strict take on quotations. The letters from The AP pushed for the removal of some items with as few as 39 words of its material quoted.

The massive oversight by The AP is that sites like the Drudge Retort actually drive traffic to the original content. It comes as little surprise that this upset bloggers immensely and as quickly as the story broke, TechCrunch took a firm stance by banning any AP content from the site. TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington wrote, “here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy.”

The AP recently followed up with a revised plan, but I’m afraid to link or quote them, so you’ll need to find the rest of this story on your own.

By Media Team

June 17th, 2008

Firefox download day is here!

Firefox download day is here!

Today is the day we (well, at least us geeks everywhere) have all been waiting for, the general release date of Firefox 3.

While there have been a few problems with the Firefox site uptime so far today, download it now on this seemingly working link.

This will clearly be a world record for most downloads in a day, so join in and get in while you can. I’m also very curious to see if Poland will end up the #2 country in downloads when all is said and done.

For more information, read about its top 10 features. Be sure to follow our newsletter this Friday for Dave Wilby‘s appraisal of Firefox 3 day after its completion.

(Image credit: Lifehacker. So if you’re wondering why there’s a robot in the picture, you’ll have to ask them. I just thought it looked cool.)

By PromptBoston

June 12th, 2008

TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design. And Inspiration

TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design. And Inspiration

If you’ve ever been in need of any intelligent inspiration, thought provoking insight, or just a way to kill an entire afternoon then you absolutely must check out the TED Talks. This site holds a collection of videos from the conference that brings together some of the world’s most brilliant minds in the fields of Technology, Entertainment, and Design, hence: T.E.D.

The TED conference has occurred annually since 1984 and just recently, with the core mission of “spreading ideas”, has made the talks available to anyone online for free. Through the talks portal you can watch any of these enlightening videos.

One of the most famous TED talks is from former US Vice President Al Gore on the climate crisis, but my two favorites are Ray Kurzweil on “How Technology’s Accelerating Power will Transform Us” (Kurzweil is one of the most brilliantly crazy people I’ve ever heard of, but fortunately uses his super-human intelligence for good), and the absolute must watch video is Malcolm Gladwell (of Tipping Point and Blink fame) speaking on “What we can learn from spaghetti sauce“.

So if you want to learn some amazing things then head on over to the TED site, but only if you have a full afternoon to kill because the videos are addictive. And once you watch, make sure to support TED through spreading ideas… by telling your friends about this blog post.

By Media Team

June 11th, 2008

Sweeping bad publicity under the electronic rug

Sweeping bad publicity under the electronic rug

By now, we all know how important social media is in relation to a company’s image and reputation. Consumers are now looking to bloggers as a source of honest information, so what happens when bloggers turn irate over a company’s products, services, or general business practices? Well, bloggers with high readership can make enough noise that the public and, often times, the press take notice.

PressReleasePros.com thinks they’ve come up with a solution to hide these negative posts and it all relies on search engine optimized press releases. The founder of the company says that if the press releases are properly optimized, when the company is searched, the new results will have pushed the negative news down into a lower ranking thus hiding it from prospective customers.

While this may be true, the PR tactic implemented here could get companies into a lot more trouble with the blogging community if they discover that this is happening – and inevitably they will since smart bloggers and consumers do their homework. But what’s more important here is that by merely trying to bury the bad news and opinions, the company isn’t addressing the real issue of whatever was causing the negative posts in the first place.

Instead of looking at social media as the enemy, companies can actually learn from what the bloggers are saying – it really is invaluable market data on how you are viewed by consumers.

I think the best way to deal with a negative social media or press story is to face it head on because you can run from the bad publicity but you can never totally hide. And hey, you may even be able to do a complete 180 and gain the respect of the community by telling the truth.

By PromptBoston

June 9th, 2008

Google's NASA relationship goes into interstellar overdrive

Google's NASA relationship goes into interstellar overdrive

Once your precocious start-up has become a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon, it takes a truly out-of-this world technology partnership to rocket business to a new level and bring the competition crashing back to earth.

If you haven’t kept tabs on Google and NASA’s mutual wooing over the past year, recent news is excuse enough for a quick refresher.

It all started out seemingly innocently enough last September when the media noticed NASA had let Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Bri share one of its company parking spots. A simple enough agreement you might think, until you read in the Herald Tribune that the parking spot in question was a much coveted federally-managed runway in NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, California (so very handy for Google HQ in Mountain View) and the company vehicle was a refurbished private wide-body Boeing 767-200…

At the time, Lenny Siegel, director of the Pacific Studies Center, a local non-profit group that has opposed proposed expansions of civilian flights at Moffett Field, had said: “If they are doing science missions, that’s OK. If they are doing it just because they are rich and popular, it is not OK.”

Anyway, a few months later a deal was inked between NASA and Google that enabled the search giant to access detailed 3D images of the Moon and Mars and use them in their web applications. The two organisations confirmed they would collaborate in a variety of areas including enriching Google Earth and launching Google Mars and Google Moon.

Finally to bring you completely up to date, Google last week signed a 40-year lease to build a 1.2 million square foot high-tech office campus on land owned by NASA, once again at the Ames Research Centre near Mountain View.

The BBC reports that over the last four years, Google has added more than 17,000 employees to boost its payroll to 19,156 workers and now needs the extra space for ever more ambitious expansion plans.

Building work is expected to get under way before 2013 with the final phase of work starting in 2022. After the 40-year lease expires, the agreement could be extended by as much as 50 more years.

The next stage of this friendship is anyone’s guess.
Care to share your wildest dreams?

By Media Team

June 6th, 2008

A browser built for one

A browser built for one

I came across a story in the Boston Globe the other day about a grandfather who built a Web browser for his grandson. Why would he do that, instead of using Firefox, you ask? His six-year-old grandson has autism and can’t use a normal browser.

Too many options confused his grandson and made him react with violence. The grandfather, being in the software industry, took it upon himself to build the browser for his grandson. After looking for tools online, and not finding anything, he created it himself with the software company he runs. He named it the Zac Browser For Autistic Children in honor of his grandson, Zackary.

It eliminates many of the distractions that a normal web browser would have, and simplifies it so that autistic children won’t feel too overwhelmed and lose confidence while surfing. Here’s a video that shows what it does:

http://d.yimg.com/static.video.yahoo.com/yep/YV_YEP.swf?ver=2.2.2

The best part, besides helping the grandson? The man who built it made it open source so that anyone can download it and see if it helps an autistic loved one. This is symbolic of the open source community in general, the philosophy that the greater good is more important than money. Open source companies are successful because of this philosophy, not in spite of it.

Although not his main goal, I’m sure he will see business benefits because of this article. His software company, People CD, was prominently featured in a Boston Globe article because of what he did. The article itself was surely read by hundreds of thousands of people, and links spread like wildfire on prominent geek sites and blogs. That’s just one article, and the Zac Browser was in other prominent publications, such as PC Magazine, PC World, US News and more. Surely, a percentage of them will search for his company to read more about it, as I did before writing this.

This truly heart-warming story shows that doing good can pay off.

By Media Team

June 4th, 2008

An Interesting MashUp – Tech Products and Children's Fairy Tales

An Interesting MashUp – Tech Products and Children's Fairy Tales

Tech startups are producing children’s books as part of their PR campaigns – does that sound a bit odd? Surprisingly, it’s one of the latest mini trends in PR campaigns. The less a company has to do with children’s products or services the better for using a child-like approach to deliver its messaging. It’s the juxtaposition that works and provides a creative, simplified way to deliver core messages in a unique format that will get recognized by the media.

The June 2008 issue of Inc. Magazine highlighted this new trend with examples of how companies, large and small, have successfully used children’s books to launch a new product or the entire company.

Microsoft, for example, created the book “Mommy, Why is there a server in the house?” to unveil its Windows Home Server. The book was used to promote the entire product line online and actually garnered coverage in The New York Times.

Fresh, quirky ideas that offer a unique way to tell a tech companies story help spark media attention. No matter if it’s in the form of a children’s short story or a clever pitch that mirrors a classic fairy tale – the bottom line is to stay fresh and creative.

I am not completely sold on this latest trend, though. People working in media have so much to read every day, that I doubt they need to be talked down to by a children’s book.

By PromptLondon

June 4th, 2008

Facebook parties go underground

Facebook parties go underground

On the evening of 31 May, thousands of revellers descended on London Underground Circle line stations with bags and stomachs full of booze. This was their last chance to enjoy drinking on the tube – a ban on all alcohol on the London Underground came into effect the next day. As Wired reports, the alcohol ban was a response to unruly behaviour and, unsurprisingly, as the night progressed, things did get… unruly.

The big party on the Tube was largely organised through social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. People passed the details of the event to each other through the sites, and thousands joined a Facebook group that posted all the planned details.

At the beginning of the evening, all was peaceful, but as the party went on, and the booze started flowing freely, things started to get out of hand. Just like the social media-organised water pistol fight in Leeds a few weeks ago, chaos broke out. As well as the expected breakages, spillages and vomiting, fights started breaking out, and trains were damaged. Six major Tube stations had to be closed down, causing problems for those who were genuinely trying to travel through London, and 17 people were arrested.

Pictures and videos of the event are spreading across Facebook and YouTube, and give a good idea of what the event was like.

Now, a few days after the event, people are starting to look at the role of the social media in organising this party. “Could an event billed as a no more than a good-natured get-together have been organised – and degenerated so quickly and dramatically into scenes more commonly associated with football terraces – without sites such as Facebook?” squealed the Daily Mail. It’s a typically leading statement, and the answer is both yes and no.

An event of this scale would have been difficult to arrange without the social media sites, but to suggest Facebook is in any way responsible for the party degenerating seems ridiculous – the problem lies with the booze and people not the way the invites were organised.

Having said that, the media has been full of stories about social media organised parties getting out of hand: the Leeds fiasco, this recent Underground event, house parties. It seems to me like the problem isn’t sites like Facebook, it’s that people are not careful or discriminate enough when distributing event information this way.

And finally, an update. It seems as if the Facebook organised Leeds mass pillow fight, reported on this blog a couple of weeks ago, was successfully cancelled after all. The residents of the city are sleeping soundly now, their pillows safely on their beds instead of in each other’s faces.

See – these events can be controlled.