internet
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
by admin
The evening of November 22, 2008 made history throughout the world as Youtube hosted their first live broadcast plus the biggest(predicted) show ever streamed on the Internet. With millions of people around the world watching Youtube daily, the video Giant put a huge performance in front of a 3000 member audience plus millions of others in all parts of the world.
Katy Perry kicked off the performance with her hit song Hot n Cold. Later Youtube dazzled the worldwide audience with appearances of The Mythbusters, Will I Am, and much more. Not only that, Youtube decided to go all the way by adding HD to their live feed which showed amazing detail and quality.
Youtube also self promoted themselves with commercials featuring their influence in the world. This including the presidential election in the United States, multiculturalism throughout the world, and much more.
Youtube’s Live page featured a graphically stunning look, and stats that were climbing minute by minute. Their channel is rated #2 most subscribed this month, #82 most subscribed all time, and #74 most subscribed all time(partner). The official stats of how many viewed the show are currently unclear, but are expected to be released within the week.
Youtube Live is also being hosted in Tokyo, Japan where another million viewers are expected to lay their eyes on. Today makes history as this is the first time ever that Youtube has played host to a live event, and in my mind we’ll definitely be seing something similar again.
For more on Youtube Live Click Here.
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
by admin
I’ve had my Twitter account for about a year now. It’s gone through it’s tough times, but in the end has been a very reliable service in terms of getting my content noticed. Well i was following some Tweets yesterday from other Twitter members when i came across a website that can make you money by just sending a Twitter.
Here is how it works:
Advertisers create campaigns providing a message and some keywords.
Matching twitterers are selected, costs are calculated based on # of followers and hotness of the topic.
Ads will be blended into the message stream: 5 tweets, one ad, 5 tweets, one ad, …
I’ve been using it for just under 24 hours and have made about 4 dollars. The amount of money you make depends on how many followers you have. So it’s really essential that you have a ton of followers to be able to use this tool effectively.
With Be-A-Magpie you can choose that the service shows an add every 1,3,5,10,15, or 20 tweets. Once you have over 50 Euros in your account you may choose to cash out. This can all happen very quickly if you are fairly popular on Twitter.
Be-A-Magpie also gives you a really simple user interface with just 3 tabs. These tabs include Start, Settings, and Account. All of which give you a detailed analysis on what is happening within your account. I should also point out that the Currency Magpie uses is Euros, and they require a billing address, unless you are using Paypal.
So if you want to make money with Twitter you can sign up now or follow my Twitter for more information.
Friday, October 24th, 2008
by admin
On the internet, a glimmer of success can go along way either through popularity or money. The Internets power has brought people to fame, and has brought businesses to the ground. Some people have learned to deal with the internet and it’s strength, while others have crumbled beneath it’s force. This leads us to today, where I’m going to point out the Top 5 most successful websites in 2008 in my opinion. This doesn’t include 2007, 2006, or any time before that. It’s just my opinion on what websites have influenced the internet community whether it be video streaming, news making, or blogging. So let’s get started with the top 5 most successful websites in 2008 from my point of view. By the way, these are in no particular order.
1- Ustream.tv- I remember about a year ago, Ustream.tv was lucky to get just about 100 channels going, which at the time seemed like a great amount. I’ve been with Ustream for about a year now, and have just adored the service that they have provided me. They bring a professional user interface to the table unlike Stickam etc. Stickam has brought a more teenage population to online streaming, which i find to be very boring and unprofessional. Ustream has brought enthusiasm, trust, and incredible attitude to their profession, so much that they have over 700 video channels at any one time. They have also attracted influential people to the internet including Presidential hopeful John Mccain, and Barack Obama. Musicians, and Actor wannabe’s are bringing their talents to Ustream and advertising their product. Nasa has involved their NASA Television with Ustream bringing the Space Missions right to peoples screens. People Like Chris Pirillo, Cali Lewis, Leo Laporte, and much more have used Ustreams services. All of this and much more is why Ustream.tv is one of the top 5 most successful websites on the internet today.
2-Twitter- Earlier in it’s time Twitter was known as an unreliable service that allowed you to post what you were doing in 140 characters or less. From server crashes, to IM failures which unfortunately is still down today, Twitter has become one of the most influential websites in the world. With politicians such as Barack Obama using it’s services to CNN and their up-to date news feeds. Twitter has spread news throughout the world in just 1 line. It was Twitter that brought information on Barack Obama’s running mate, it was Twitter that has potentially saved hostages in the middle east, it was Twitter that has brought other websites to fame. The road for Twitter hasn’t been easy though. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it had plenty of server crashes coming out of nowhere, so much that now Twitter has added limitations to how many “Tweets” you may send, and how many people you may follow. As I’ve expressed earlier, these limitations have disappointed me due to my needs of reaching you (the community). The New York Times have called Twitter one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Twitter has also influenced other companies to make products that create an ease of access to your Twitter account. Examples of this would be Twhirl, Ping.Fm, Twitter Feed. Iphone Applications have also be developed to access Twitter. Although it still has a few bugs to work out, Twitter is definately one of the top 5 most successful websites of 2008.
3-TechCrunch-
TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to covering new companies, we profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space.
That is just a little information from their website. Techcrunch has influenced the technology community with no end since it’s first post in 2005. But 2008 is when Techcrunch really came out and brought opinion, information, and authority to profiling new, and interesting companies. Techcrunch has been featured in hundreds of online news articles, magazines, and much more. Tech Crunch has also brought more interest to the popular blogging Software Wordpress as this is the software that they use in providing their service to the online community. Now Wordpress is used by major news organizations like the CBC and Cnn. These are all just a few reasons why Tech Crunch is 1 of the top 5 most successful websites of 2008.
4-Google- I know i said that this post was going to be the top 5 most successful websites of 2008, but i couldn’t resist. Google even today is “taking the over the internet” From their Search engine first being created over 10 years ago, to the reality today where they have become an internet powerhouse. With present projects like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and much more. Google has accomplished more than anyone else in plenty of different adversities. Google has also brought money to other people using their Google Adwords and Adsense Programs where people put relative ad units to their content and make money every time someone clicks on an add. This is otherwise known as PPC. Adsense has become so popular that Googles rival Yahoo has wanted in. Yahoo is now embedding Googles Adsense into their search results. This is bringing millions if not billions of dollars to both companies. Below i’ve taken a little history from their Wikipedia Page to give you guys a little more information on what Google has done throughout the years.
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page, a Ph.D. student at Stanford.[1] In search for a dissertation theme, Page considered—among other things—exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph.[2] His supervisor Terry Winograd encouraged him to pick this idea (which Page later recalled as “the best advice I ever got”[3]) and Page focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind).[2] In his research project, nicknamed “BackRub”, he was soon joined by Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student and close friend, whom he had first met in the summer of 1995 in a group of potential new students which Brin had volunteered to show around the campus.[2] Page’s web crawler began exploring the web in March 1996, setting out from Page’s own Stanford home page as its only starting point.[2] To convert the backlink data that it gathered into a measure of importance for a given web page, Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm.[2] Analyzing BackRub’s output—which, for a given URL, consisted of a list of backlinks ranked by importance—it occurred to them that a search engine based on PageRank would produce better results than existing techniques (existing search engines at the time essentially ranked results according to how many times the search term appeared on a page).[2][4] A small search engine called RankDex was already exploring a similar strategy.[5]
Google In 1998
Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.
The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of “googol,”[6][7] which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb, “google,” was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning, “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.”[8][9]
By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages.[10] The home page was still marked “BETA“, but an article in Salon.com already argued that Google’s search results were better than those of competitors like Hotbot or Excite.com, and praised it for being more technologically innovative than the overloaded portal sites (like Yahoo!, Excite.com, Lycos, Netscape’s Netcenter, AOL.com, Go.com and MSN.com) which at that time, during the growing dot-com bubble, were seen as “the future of the Web”, especially by stock market investors.[10]
In March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[11] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 1999.[12] The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol of zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[13]
The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[14] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[1] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[1] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and click-throughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click.[1] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).[15][16][17] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[1]
Google’s declared code of conduct is “Don’t be evil“, a phrase which they went so far as to include in their prospectus (aka “red herring” or “S-1″) for their IPO, noting, “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”
The Google site often includes humorous features such as cartoon modifications of the Google logo to recognize special occasions and anniversaries.[18] Known as “Google Doodles”, most have been drawn by Google’s international webmaster, Dennis Hwang.[19] Not only may decorative drawings be attached to the logo, but the font design may also mimic a fictional or humorous language such as Star Trek Klingon and Leet.[20] The logo is also notorious among web users for April Fool’s Day tie-ins and jokes about the company.
5-Apple- Although it in itself is not a company, Apple has influenced the website through it’s products such as the Iphone, Macbook Pro, Macbook, Ipod Touch, Ipod Nano, and much more. It has also influenced the internet with it’s unique web design, and simplicity it brings to the internet. The Apple website is one of the most vibrantly designs website I’ve seen, and the speed, and support is just remarkable. Apple has also been the cause for new websites such as Mac Rumors which is a website that brings information all related to Apple. Apple has also brought competition into their hemisphere. With Google now releasing their Android Phone, Apple now has competition with their Iphone, further forcing them to create revolutionary products. Apple has also brought controversy about the health of their CEO Steve Jobs. Although this isn’t directly related to their website it has brought attention to the company. Apple has also been a supporter of product Red. Product Red is a charity dedicated to saving lives in unfortunate companies such as Africa and Madagascar. All of this is why Apple has become one of the major powerhouse within the Internet community.
Well I hope i’ve made my point about all these companies. There are plenty more influential websites throughout the internet, but these 5 just seemed to stick out in my mind. All of these companies have generated millions of dollars not just to themselves but to others as well. They have brought the world together through communication, news, search, and their products.
If you have any more influential websites that you think have influenced the internet whether in a positive way, or a negative way please feel free to email me by clicking here. Or leave a comment below. I love hearing what you guys think the latest and greatest is within the technology community whether it’s hardware, software, or even the internet. I also have a Twitter account, and i follow all people that follow me.
Thanks.
Friday, October 10th, 2008
by admin
The Internet is an extremely powerful resource that over a billion people use everyday. With constant search queries showing up on Search Engines, and money now being made that before was never thought to exist. With a greater amount of traffic flow, and more bandwidth being burned on the internet we are now in a situation of competition throughout internet providers, server providers, and major companies whether they’re online or using the internet for business purposes. For example Google has thousands of servers that are used each day from various locations across the world. For those of you who don’t know what a server is, it’s an extremely powerful computer that is frequently intended for foreign uses in relation to the server itself. The website that you’re viewing right now is hosted on a Server. The Youtube videos, audio streams, and vertually anything else you view through your internet browser is hosted on a server somewhere within our world.
Recently you have probably heard of major internet providers lowering the amount of internet data that you can use, and in some cases “upping” the price. You have also seen services previously known to be free, having some sort of price or additional advertising to their product. You have also seen that governments around the world are cracking down on inappropriate use of the internet aka: downloading pornography, music, movies, and video illegally. Rumors of major internet companies like Google have been surfacing as of late about the monitoring of the regular user on the internet, and governments now having capabilities never thought using the internet. Bank fraud has also become a major problem within the online universe, along with other security related struggles. Which leads me to the point i’m trying to get to today. What changes should we be expecting on the internet in the minority of time, or within the long run?
It seems that there is an increasingly more amount of political toughness seeping through the inter webs and charging for the now known to be common product. There have also been reports from various news organizations suggesting that the world is running out of bandwidth, which in my opinion won’t become a problem within the near future. You have also seen that live video which in general terms of should be costing a fortune, being available for free. It almost gives you a rather grand sense of being spoiled. Which leaves the only option. We are also seeing internet now being used through television sets, and portable modems being used in the general public. We have also seen the release in the last few years of the Iphone, which is known for it’s wireless Internet capabilities.
Phone companies are only now realizing the threat of the internet towards their business as cheaper, in some cases free programs like Skype and Oovoo are now being used widely across the world. The television industry is taking a fairly large hit due to live internet streaming, video, and audio production now being available for free. Journalism seems to be taken over by blogging, with news organizations like the CBC, and CNN using Wordpress to syndicate news throughout the internet.
The future in my opinion is going to cost money. Unless we as a whole fight the increasing amount of pressure to add a dollar sign to the applications we have known to be free. The internet is being used more and more today, with no end in near sight. Companies are going to try their best to make as much money as they can and it’s up to the consumer(you) to determine whether you are being toyed with or whether the company is acting in a truthful manner.
What’s your opinion on this? Where do you think the internet is headed? How do you use the internet, and what do you plan to change to make yourself more secure using it? I love hearing from you guys…. Feel free to comment below or send me an email by clicking here.
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
by admin
Firefox was the first to release this new generation of browsers spilling out their third official version of Firefox. Internet Explorer then realized that they were steadily falling behind Firefox in the web browsing industry. This caused them to release Internet Explorer 8 which at the time was all the rage with their new In-Private Browsing, and the ability to fix broken pages that were not yet compatible with the new browser. About a Month later who would expect that Google would come out with the premier of their browser called Google Chrome. This was a big surprise to the internet community as Google finally surpassed the walls of their online community and have reached into the users desktop with their own creative version of online browsing.
Google Logo
When you first open Google Chrome you notice a very clean and simple interface, somewhat reminding you of what Internet Explorer used to be. Easy to navigate, the refresh button, and all of the other Goodies that we’ve come to know with online browsing. Google Chrome gives you a small compact feel, with plenty large scale features that in my opinion were much needed for the online community.
First i’ll start out with the address bar. What? Yes the address bar is a very interesting and important piece to Google Chrome. Don’t worry, it still lets you search the website you’re looking for by the traditional format(ie http://bradwelltv.com/) but Google has also implemented their search engine within the address bar. Basically this simplifies searching the internet by typing your search directly into your address bar opposed to going to a Search Engine Website, or downloading a toolbar. This saves countless hours over a large period of time in searching the Internet. Google Chrome has also implemented a feature that Firefox, and Internet Explorer has already established in their browsers. I like to call it “Smart Search”, and what this does is allow you to search your history in a much easier way than previous browsers. With this ability Chrome remembers and recognizes your website history by showing you sites similar to the characters you are typing into your address bar. For Example: If I typed in “Mexican hammocks”.it would pop up all of the websites that i have visited with those keywords.
If you thought Google would only stick Chrome on your desktop, you were wrong. An amazing feature that Google has implemented into Chrome allows you to turn websites into applications. Some people might consider this as a shortcut to a website. This feature goes along nicely with web applications such as Google Calendar, where as you can access your Calendar directly from your desktop in it’s own application with the use of Chrome. This feature has really been around for a while know but people are now only realizing it. If you are using another browser such as Safari, Firefox, or Internet Explorer it’s as simple as copying and pasting a shortcut to your desktop, whereas on Google Chrome you are pasting an application.
Chrome has revolutionized tabs. I know it’s a scary thought but they have. We all know of using tabs(multiple websites in one window) on Internet Explorer, and Firefox. Which back in it’s day was a big hit with the general online community but now Google has advanced “tabbing” with an intriguing ability to drag tabs off of one window and create it’s own. You can also take the tabs you have pulled off a single window and place them back into their previous position. With Chrome you can also slide your tabs to organize them in whatever order best suites you. Organizing the tabs is as simple as drag and drop, or slide and glide.
We are all accustomed to the ability of setting a website as your homepage in other versions of internet browsing. Yes Google does allow you to do just that, along with another interesting way of viewing your history. You can set your homepage so that it shows your nine most visited websites along with a preview in your history. Along with that a bookmarks list and a history search all in one page. This simplifies going to your most frequently visited websites with just one click.
Finally a feature that we should all know about now first starting with In-Private browsing with Internet Explorer has become a key feature of Google Chrome….. Except for the fact that Google decided to call it “Incognito”. This allows you to view websites with the comfort of knowing no one else will which as we all know isn’t entirely true. By using this Chrome won’t leave behind a trail of browsing history, search history, and/or Cookies once you close your browser. As i’ve stated in my IE 8 review this can be used for “inappropriate” searching…. I’ll leave it at that.
Again Chrome in my opinion has revolutionized the way that we search the internet whether it be through search, and/or applications. Google Chrome is definitely the future of internet browsing and the way that we look at the internet. Chrome is a huge blowout to any and all of it’s competition.
Thanks
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008
by admin
Gnomedex hosted by Chris and Ponzi Pirillo, has been yet one of the biggest successes ever performed by the couple. They had very powerful and thought oriented people that clashed together with positive thoughts to make technology more recognized throughout North America, and the world.
Whether it was Sarah Lacy or Mark Bao each presenter had something positive to say and contributed to the tech community around them in some cases involving the community. Ben Huh came in and showed the soft, funny side of the technology community around us, while Scott Maxwell came and showed us what the technology can do to help us advance and linger in the outer limits of our world.
Chris Pirillo dazzled the audience and the chat room with insight, thought, professionalism, creativity, and acceptance. Highlights of the conference included a youth from Chris’s chat room hugging his role model with respect and praise. Chris involved anyone and everyone whether it was a buddy from Ireland, or a local
Chris Pirillo’s (Un-moderated) chatroom also made a spectacular appearance being one of the most respectful television audiences I’ve seen in my entire life. With detailed and intelligent questions, this chatroom could be the brain of technology future alike. Credit for that goes to Kat Armstrong, and Chris Pirillo.
The Pirillo couple also amazed the technology world with his amazing team working the cameras on his live feed. He created it so that the viewers of the tech community felt like they were present and apart of this conference.
Chris also mentioned at the end of this 3 day conference that him and his wife Ponzi are considering moving around the country delivering this technology influenced content to different states, and cities of America.
As this is over, Chris will move back into his office at home in Seattle , and still stream himself plucking away at his keyboard with a trusting community that will follow and respect him for the road ahead whether there is a Gnomedex or not.
Thank you,
Photo Credit: Derek K. Miller-
