In what could be a comment on the growing free economy, or maybe just a throwback to the countercultural “Free Stores” of the 1960’s, Danish art collective Superflex will be staging FREE SHOP in different stores around Haugesund, Norway. For the next few weeks, as part of the Dynamo-Haugesund 08 arts festival, Superflux will partner with shops who will give away customer’s purchases for free. The giveaways won’t be advertised as to surprise unsuspecting customers. Superflex has experimented in the past with alternative systems of distribution and economic production, like their Creative Commons-licensed beer franchise FREE BEER and their...
If you’re own or work for a small to medium business and are trying to get your head around how to use the internet, social media, blogging and other emerging online technologies to promote your brand, build income and drive sales then you should check out Internet Marketing Masterminds. This course will kick off on 12th of November and is being put on by fellow Aussies Alister Cameron and Ben Galt from Australis Media. Over the last year when I’ve been approached by businesses (large and small) wanting blog consulting I’ve referred them to Alister. The reports coming back...
Ever since it launched, Google Labs for Gmail has rolled out a string of add-on features that allow developers and savvy users to customize Gmail and add new features without waiting for Google to make official updates. Labs has apparently proven such a success that Google is extending the idea to Google Apps. There are, however, some important differences in the Labs for Google Apps version. The features are aimed primarily at “enterprise” and small businesses customers. To use the new apps you need to have a Google Apps for your Domain account and you’ll need administrator privileges to turn...
Filed under: Business, Trends, On the BlogsAt 6am this morning I was taking a break from paying bills online and stopped by one of my favorite web-sites, ChowHound.com, now part of Chow.com, a former food magazine. I've been a reader and lurker on the discussion forum there since 1999, and a regular poster since around 2001-2002, or thereabouts. Today there was a question posted: What food job would you like? I thought about it and posted my answer, which you can see after the jump below. The thing about this is that where I am in my life right now,...
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, OS, iPhoneSteve Ballmer is imitating his CEO predecessor by suggesting that Apple separate its iPhone hardware from OS X, according to Ars Technica. Nokia leads the smartphone market today with about a 30 percent share, he said. "If you want to reach more than that, you have to separate the hardware and software in the platform," he said in an discussion forum with the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley business and technology group. In 1985, Bill Gates approached Apple (and its then-CEO, John Sculley) with prospects in hand to convince it to license Mac OS...
Switzerland's Amazee on Wednesday is launching its site for building social projects. It's a solid effort. The collaboration tools look good, and I like how it puts the focus on the project, unlike most other social nets that focus on the person. However, in its current form, Amazee is more impressive in theory than practice. I don't want to say the project suffers from hubris, but I do believe it will need to climb down from its ivory tower to succeed. Within the site, you can set up a project, such as raising money for a cause, organizing a...
A game on Facebook's platform called "PackRat" has been causing some issues for the site, according to a thread in the game's discussion forum. The aim of PackRat appears to involve amassing graphical "cards" to chalk up points--sort of like the original Pokemon game, some cards are easy ......
A controversy is brewing over a popular Facebook application called PackRat, where users collect sets of illustrated cards for points and levels. The company behind the application, Alamofire, says that users generate up to 500 daily page views per day on the application trying to hunt down the right card to complete a collection. A big part of the game is “stealing” cards from friends, and so a lot of users add other users as friends so that their cards can be obtained. The application’s popularity has also led some users to create Facebook accounts for the sole purpose of...
I’m a fan of FriendFeed, the Internet service aggregator self-described as: FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends. For an example of it in action, you can see my profile here. Basically the site pulls from a variety of sources, such as Digg, YouTube, Flickr, my blog, etc, and presents all the content in one view. As you can see to the right of this screen, I use a widget to show my latest...
The alt with the chains, or so I call it. Say you’re searching for the latest presidential polls, as is wont this time of year, but being the news-obsessed political junkie you are, you already know a few good sites. Rowdii will allow you, first, to find the latest presidential polls, after which you can link the site you found to the one you like, basically sharing the love by leading other rowdii users the site you personally use. Or, if you’re reviewing a hotel website, you may decide to check out the site’s Linked Sites page to find...
If you haven’t checked out the Technologizer Community lately–or at all–here’s a good reason to pay a visit: We’ve launched ten special-interest groups on popular tech topics that a lot of people are interested in. Each one features a discussion forum and a wall; they’re a great place to find folks who share your interests and exchange opinions and advice. Registered members can participate in any or all of the groups–and registering is free and easy. (Still skeptical? As with the rest of the Technologizer Community, you can read content in the groups without registering.) Here are the new groups:...
Back in May, we at iSmashPhone were excited to report on OrbLive, a streaming-media app that essentially acts like SlingBox for your iPhone. Only one drawback: since OrbLive wasn't an "official," House of Jobs-approved app, you needed a jailbroken iPhone in order to install it. Orb officially calls it "beta software," but you get the idea. What makes OrbLive so attractive is that it takes much of the teeth-grinding configuaration woes out of the streaming-media setup ("what port do I use?", etc.). Start by installing their streaming app on Internet-connected PC that houses the media you wish to share: video...
