URL Shortners

It always bothered me when I wanted to share a url online but had to paste a link that was over a hundred characters long.  It’s incontinent and sometimes hard on the eyes.  I didn’t know what URL shorteners were until Professor Smith used them in class for out reading assignments and then was exposed to them again when I copy and pasted a link into Twitter, and it was automatically converted into a tinyurl. 

5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful:

1. They make links more manageable
   
2. They can track and compile click data
   
3. They can be transformed into social media services
   
4. They can provide users useful features
   
5. They promote sharing
   

 Blog Post: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Google Street Car - Public or Private Debate

The google street car is making its way through the UK, but not without some controversy.

The subsequent story is one experience of the car - http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6022902.ece

And the following blog post seems to sum up the internet opinion on the matter.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2009/04/why-the-villagers-who-sent-the-google-street-view-car-packing-are-nimbys-gone-mad.html

What do you think? Is this type of info private or public? A picture from the street of your home? Does it give too much to criminals looking to scope out their next target? Or are these self righteous gits overreacting?

Did Yahoo! Give fareChase a Fair Chance?

Interesting Blog post about the health of the online travel industry. Apparently Yahoo! owned a website called fareChase which was attempting to compete with better known names in the cheap online travel market, however due to the current economic situation fareChase has been shut down. Interesting article that relates to the health of the online economy!

http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/content/did+yahoo!+yhoo+give+farechase+a+fair+chance/dailycontrarian.aspx?newsid=92068#92068

MySpace Teams with CitySearch to Launch Local Business Portal

MySpace has teamed up with business directory Citysearch to create a socially-oriented search portal within the MySpace community. The result is a new section called MySpace Local. This new directory is not yet available, but will be launched in beta later on this week.

Citysearch is bringing its database to the table, while MySpace is going to be “socializing” the whole affair. In doing so, businesses will be able to connect with each other, and users will be able to connect with businesses. MySpace Local will over listing pages for small businesses, which will cover three categories at launch: Restaurants, Bars and Nightife. On each listing page, users will be able to rate, review and share media for each business. Users will also be able to add the business to their profile, share a business listing with friends, and add it to their bookmarks.

Blog Source

How To Make Your Own iPhone Application

I think this is very Web 2.0 - users helping users create a more powerful platform. This is a new application (although you can find tutorials online) that helps others learn how to create their very own iPhone application. Although I am not interested in creating my own application, I think the fact that apple has allowed anyone and everyone a shot at creating and being apart of their applications is great. I mean, some people are even making a lot of money! Check it out!

Google, at your service.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-at-your-service.html

This post tells about how Google is releasing a program called "Google Services for Websites." They provide tools that make it much easier for people to create their own websites, reserving spaces for addresses such as www.[yournamehere].com.

I found this interesting because I know I would need all the help I can get when creating a webpage of my own!.

Twitter useful?!? Shocking!

http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2009/03/twitchiker-makes-it-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-in-30-days.html

This is a story of a journalist who traveled around the world with nothing more than the generosity of twits.

Twitter is getting more and more popular due to its simplicity - a counter-culture to the facebook phenomenon of "social everything", its simple design is half-google, half-myspace (admit it, there are seriously stupid users out there), seems to be paying off. It certainly paid off for the journalist in this story and even wound up helping charity in the process.