I must say it. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is a cool guy.
See his appearance on Saturday Night Live (video below). He confronted on stage the actor Jessie Eisenberg, who player Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. He called him his "evil twin."
A huge number of Internet users worldwide are flocking to Al-Jazeera's stream to watch the astonishing images of a regime on the verge of collapse.
The refusal of the U.S. cable network to carry Al-Jazeera's feed has forced this Arab network to play the Internet card when trying to reach the American audience:
Live commercials demonstrating products were part of the early television. Now these live shows in the form of branded entertainment are making a comeback in the new media.
For example, Hewlett-Packard is launching a comedy show on the Web to demonstrate H.P.'s ePrint printer. It is called the "H.P. ePrint Live."
For that, HP has team up with YouTube (who also has done branded entertainment programs for American Express).
Viewers decide which skits the comedians perform by e-mailing their suggestions to a HP printer which is onstage.
Video clips, banner ads, Twitter and Facebook, among other places, are used prior to the show to encourage people to participate.
H.P. is also running a campaign for ePrint in traditional media, with television commercials. “Introducing the new Web-connected printers with ePrint from H.P.,” an announcer says. “Print from any mobile device so your ideas can be there, even when you’re not.”
I've tried the new Twitter.com, which allows you to view and embed videos directly on your Twitter page, and I believe it is a game-changer.
Attaching video clips to your tweets (either from your desktop or cellphone) makes video viewing more friendly and more accessible than with the old Twitter.
For marketers, it is an amazing tool for getting their message across. For the media, another opportunity for their real-time news stories.
In addition, posting video along with your tweet improves search engine rankings because you are "doubling down" on your visibility in Google.
A final note. If you plan to add video to your tweets, keep those clips short. Ideally, you should create content that is specifically designed for Twitter, a kind of micro-videos feed.
When one of the most successful company in the history (Google) performs such a management shake-up in order to rediscover its start-up roots, you have to wonder how your company is doing.
As it has grown into the dominant company in Silicon Valley, Google, 24,000 employees, has lost some of its entrepreneurial culture and become a slower-moving bureaucracy, in contrast with Facebook, Twitter and other younger, more agile competitors. (To counter this, in April Larry Page, its 38-year-old co-founder will take over as CEO from Eric E. Schmidt, a veteran manager who was brought in a decade ago to provide adult supervision.)
"One of the primary goals I have is to get Google to be a big company that has the nimbleness and soul and passion and speed of a start-up," Larry Page said.
Despite its financial success, Google is no longer considered by many top engineers as the most desirable place to work in Silicon Valley. A new generation of start-ups has surpassed it.
In other words, when recurring strains remain in your company (or in the company you work for), you must get back your entrepreneurial drive, no matter how big is the management shake-up.
uShip was an unknown shipping company. After the brilliant promotion they've done creating a parody of "The Social Network", you won't forget their name that easy.
In the trailer participates the uShip.com CEO, as well as other managers.
Remote controls for watching TV are a thing of the past, even the sophisticated ones produced by Logitech.
Soon mobile phones are going to take over remotes.
See in the above's video the new Google's app for its Google TV Interface that works on Android devices. It allows users to control their program guides, access their DVRs and send content from the mobile device directly to the TV.
Notice that a growing number of viewers are using mobile phones in the living room texting and browsing the web while watching TV. So extending navigation to those devices makes sense.
It comes a time when we the tech-savvy people need to pull away from our computer or device screen and put ourselves out there.
If you want to survive in this business (well, in any business), you must expand your circle of contacts. And contacts can be made anywhere –seminars, conferences, openings, industry functions...
I have collected some tips about getting business contacts when attending events:
Don't try to demonstrate your charm or impress people. You just need to be interested. Ask questions. Find out what the other guy is into.
Go somewhere that's interesting to the people you want to meet. You are working, not seeking a fun night.
Avoid your friends when working a room. Your goal is to meet new people. Introduce each other to whomever you've met.
Arrive early. You will make a few acquaintances who can then introduce you to some of their friends as more people arrive.
Don't leave early. You will have more opportunities to talk to people under calmer circumstances. Often they are the people in charge of the event or offices in the organization.
Pick the longest food or drink line. It will give you the chance to talk to the person in font of you and in back of you. You will need to make the first move to open a conversation.
Spend your time finding out what other people do. Research, don't try to impress anyone.
Get their card. That will give you control of the follow-up. If you find yourself cornered you would like to get away from, the best way to end the conversation is to ask for their card.
If someone asks you what you are working on, give them one-sentence what-is-about line and turn the conversation back to something about them.
Starbucks has redesigned its logo, removing its name and leaving only a stylized illustration of the green mermaid.
The chairman Howard Schultz has explained in an online video the symbolic relevance of the change. "By allowing the siren to come out of the circle, the company is thinking beyond coffee".
If this minimalist trend continues, it is easy to figure out what will come next. A portuguese designer imagined in the above's way. Really funny.
Are you a fan of WordPress blogging platform? Watch out!
WordPress has been considered by the anti-virus company Trend Micro as the riskiest web software used in 2010.
"Tens of thousands of un-patched WordPress blogs were used by cyber criminals for various scheme, primarily as part of redirection chains that led to various malware attacks or other blackhat search engine optimization (SEO)-related schemes," explains Trend Micro.
The problem here are the plugins. You are at the mercy of the developer that nothing malicious has been programmed into the plugin. And let's face it, most of those plugins are primarily developed by individual developers or very small teams with limited budget for testing.
Because when you install a WordPress Plugin you are installing an application. And that is a potential source of vulnerability.
In addition to the plugins, it is the code itself which requires an intensive maintenance.
Last week, for example, an important warning was issued by WordPress itself. WordPress was recommending users immediately upgrading their accounts after a critical security bug was found. It was a scripting flaw that could be used by an attacker to bypass security controls and gain unauthorized access to a user's blog.
These kind of mandatory security updates are a problem, especially when they occur during the holiday season.
In other words, if you are running a non-professional blog, you might be allowed to face security threats. You will survive having viable backup of your site and upgrading to a valid site. After all, your blog is not critical for your business. But if you are well-established brand or you take your blogging activity seriously, definitely WordPress (nor Joomla or Drupal) is not for you. At all.
It is very interesting to see a U.S. President in a tech forum taking to Internet people.
In above's video you can watch former President George W. Bush stopping by the Facebook headquarters and talking to Mark Zuckerberg. Bush is there promoting his new memoir, Decision Points.
I was not a Bush fan but I must say that now he appears cool, funny, open minded. He gets continuos round of applause from the tech audience. Congratulations Mr. President!
It is official: the Web is now as popular as TV. Americans and Canadians spend as much time online as they spend watching TV: 13 hours per week.
This is according to a Forrester report, which indicates that the time spent online has grown more than 120 % since 2005, whereas the time spent watching TV only grew 5 % in the same period.
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