web

Web 2.0 gets schooled

This afternoon, I went over to NYC's Cooper Union to sit in on the final project presentations for the Web 2.0 Paradigms class, a hands-on course in the school's electrical engineering department taught by adjunct professor Sanford Dickert. In this course, the students--who were required to have software development experience--created their own Web applications from start to (very beta) launch, with a focus on the end user experience and what kinds of consumers would use such a service.

Here's Webware's recap of the four products that were demonstrated--a fifth team had been working on developing … Read more

News roundup: StumbleUpon, Last.fm, Xbox 360 chat

StumbleUpon/eBay talks heat up. The Wall Street Journal is reporting (registration required) that a deal between eBay and StumbleUpon to acquire the social networking and content recommendation service is getting closer. No agreement has been made on price, but the rumored amount brings it somewhere near $75 million dollars. If acquired, StumbleUpon's content preference algorithms could be employed on eBay's auction listings to give eBay users a new way to get recommendations on things they might want to buy. ( CNET News.com Blog)

Last.fm launching video service. As reported by the Register in March, Last.fm … Read more

eBay reportedly in 'advanced talks' for StumbleUpon

Internet auction site eBay is in "advanced talks" to acquire Web-ratings site StumbleUpon, according to a report Tuesday night in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The deal could be worth $75 million according to the newspaper, which cited unnamed sources.

The sources told the newspaper that the deal for StumbleUpon was not final and could fall apart.

The report comes a couple of weeks after technology blog Techcrunch reported that the sites were in buyout talks, as well as naming Google and AOL as other suitors. GigaOm, another blog, reported an asking price in the neighborhood of $… Read more

Google Analytics gets a face-lift

Google Analytics relaunched today, adding several new visualization tools and ways to share data with others. The tool gives Web site owners a free and relatively easy system to keep track of how people are accessing content on their site, including ways to track which content is getting the most views, how much time each user is spending on the site, and the number of visits by time of day. There's also a handy map overlay which will show you where your users are, right down to the city they live in.

One of the updated features is the Analytics dashboard, which is now completely customizable and has simplified data. Users can relocate, add, and remove the various data widgets, in a similar fashion to that of iGoogle. Also new is the option to e-mail or export reports as PDFs, which can now be scheduled to be sent out automatically every day, week, month or quarter using a built-in calendar. Previously you were only able to export it as a non-human-friendly XML file.

The service is mainly an extension of Google's AdWords program, which lets site owners purchase words that link to various parts of their site via contextual ads that show up on Google or partnered search engine results. But even if you're not interested in making money it's a free Analytics solution that requires no software, just a line of code on any page you want to keep track of. If you're a WordPress user, there's even a plug-in to automatically add it to your site. Blogger users are also able to add it by tweaking their blog template.

There's more information about the update on the Google Analytics Blog post. For more screenshots of the new dashboard, keep reading. … Read more

A special Google Reader for your Wii

Nintendo Wii owners who have been enjoying their updated Web browser can now enjoy a special version of Google Reader designed exclusively for their Wii remotes and TV screens. Google has made the text a little bigger and changed the interface from a two-pane look to a simple feeds list.

One big change regular Google Reader users are bound to notice is the updated control scheme. To jump between feeds just hit the "1" button, which pulls up a slick looking pop-up with a listing of all your feeds. It's almost an easier system than the one … Read more

Microsoft's pie in the eye

Some things never die, especially notorious photos on the Internet. Just ask Bill Gates, whose infamous pie-in-the-eye shot was posted by a hacker on a Web site hosting information on Microsoft distribution licenses.

The hacker posted the embarrassing 1988 photo on a sub-page of ieak.microsoft.com, which is designed to allow users to select a distribution license for an Internet Explorer Administration kit, according to a SANs Internet Storm report.

Microsoft is not alone in having its content defaced via a hosting partner's site. Take Kevin Mitnick, for example, whose hosted site was hacked and defaced last year. … Read more

Using the Web to navigate California freeway collapse

In the wake of a tanker truck crash that caused a freeway collapse in the San Francisco Bay Area, Web sites are providing invaluable traffic information to commuters.

The crash occurred at 3:45 a.m. Sunday in Oakland, igniting 8,600 gallons of gasoline on the Interstate 80 interchange and causing a section of the I-580 overpass (Google satellite image) just east of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to collapse onto the I-880 roadway below.

Witnesses reported fireballs reaching more than 200 feet into the air. The truck driver escaped with second-degree burns. There were no reports of fatalities … Read more

One-stop Web design shop for Mac

Coding a Web site once you get past the idea phase is a complicated process. You have to manage several files for each page of your site, you need a solid text editor for actual coding, you may need a CSS editor, an Internet browser for previewing your work, and an FTP client once you're ready to transfer your files. Though I've done little in the way of actual Web design, my efforts have always required running several programs at once while I switch back and forth.

Fortunately, our friends over at Panic realized that this was not … Read more

GM recruits MapQuest to cut out the middleman

General Motors and MapQuest have teamed up on a new service enabling drivers of GM's OnStar-enabled cars to use the Web to select and store destinations for their turn-by-turn guidance when out on the road. The new service, called OnStar Web Destination Entry, will allow drivers to find up to five destinations on MapQuest's Web site, then send them to the OnStar system directly from their computers.

The theory goes that these destinations can then be accessed while out on the road by connecting to the OnStar service center and selecting a stored destination via OnStar's automated … Read more