DIGITAL. TRENDS. FUTURE.
08
Jun
Jun
New iPhone 3GS with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, improved 3 megapixel camera that also does video at 30 fps
08
Jun
Jun
I am just following the WWDC presentation by Apple on live video and twittering about it at www.twitter.com/montymetzger
19
May
May
Big changes are in the works for Twitter and their realtime search features, says new Twitter VP of Operations Santosh Jayaram, changes that may spell the end of the status quo both for the microblogging platform in particular and the entire concept of organic searching in general.
Jayaram, who previously worked on Google’s search quality team, spoke two weeks ago at a TIEcon 2009 preview conference about the changes Twitter is planning to implement to their search features, providing attendees with a compelling look at how the microblogging platform may rise up to challenge even Google in terms of indexing Web 2.0 content.
“Twitter will begin crawling and indexing content linked from Tweets, not just the tweets themselves anymore.”
The most major change Jayaram spoke about concerns how Twitter indexes content. Until now, Twitter’s realtime search feature has been limited to Tweets themselves; the content of each Tweet is indexed and searchable through Twitter’s search engine. That, Jayaram says, is going to change – at an unspecified point in the near future, Twitter will begin crawling and indexing content linked from Tweets, not just the tweets themselves anymore.
Look out, Google – Twitter’s got your number. The change to Twitter’s search feature is huge, and it all boils down to analytical data, and the immense value that such information carries with it. Twitter’s ability to track realtime trends already puts Google’s to shame – and taking that ability off the twitter.com domain means that the microblogging platform is poised to become the internet’s premiere Web 2.0 content index. Even the brief delay of a few hours in Google’s search engine results represents eons in the hyperspeed context of the modern internet. Twitter can fill in that gap, and Jayaram provided us with some juicy details about how they’re going to be doing that.
One of the ways that Twitter is going to increase the relevancy of its search engine is by introducing a Twitter “reputation” ranking system, says Jayaram. Currently, when searching a popular trending topic, or clicking its link on the Twitter sidebar, users are usually overwhelmed with a wealth of “hollow content” like retweets, comments, and so on. Twitter’s reputation ranking system will change that by providing users with an authoritative view of trending topics and keywords on Twitter, instead of just flinging users into a chronological timeline.
That change alone will improve Twitter’s search by leaps and bounds. I can’t wait to find out more about when we can expect to see these changes implemented, and how Twitter plans to show users the data that it collects about off-site content.
Via Twittown:
http://www.twittown.com/twitter/twitters-new-search-might-just-change-everything
05
May
May
Today Christian Magel and Monty Metzger have presented the Video of key results of the MOCOM 2020 project at Next’09.
04
May
May
We are preparing the final materials for my speech about Mocom2020.com tomorrow. The next conference is one of the leading digital media conferences in germany.
We will do a world premiere of the final Mocom2020.com Video.
You can follow me on twitter at
www.twitter.com/montymetzger
30
Apr
Apr
I had been at the Hilton for a big and important Business Conference. The Service at the Hotel was a disaster. I had to wait for 1 hour to get my room due to a mistake at the reception. Then the staff brought by bags to my room and where angry at my because I didn’t have a tip for them.
The Wifi was a total ripp-off or as Rory Cellan-Jones (BBC’s technology correspondent) wrote on his twitter feed:
“Think I’ve found world’s most expensive wifi. £25 for 24 hours at Hilton Prague” http://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/1627921673
“Not only is this hotel broadband a rip-off – it’s not even broadband. Tested it – it’s 0.2mbps” http://twitter.com/ruskin147/status/1629994161
I also parked by car in the Hotel garage. You can’t believe it. 56 Euros for two days. That is what I call a “ripp-off”.
Some of the Room of the Business Center where very “smelly” and the whole atmosphere of the conference area was not five star level.
I would not recommend this hotel!
Furthermore I found several negative reviews about the Hilton Hotel in Prague online:
“Totally disappointed and I felt ripped off”
Was this really a hilton?
Prague Hilton – what a letdown (and ripoff!)
I am wondering if the Hilton Hotel Group already does some Social Media Monitoring? We will see….
07
Apr
Apr
GM and Segway developed a two-seater electric car to debut in NYC in 2012.
US carmaker General Motors is joining with scooter maker Segway to make a new type of two-seat electric vehicle. The prototype, which will be debuted in New York, is aimed at urban driving. GM aims to start making them by 2012. The vehicle, named Puma, has a top speed of 35mph and can go as far as 35 miles on a single charge. It will use lithium-ion batteries. GM, having been bailed out by the US government, is looking to smaller vehicles to secure its future.
Puma stands for personal urban mobility and accessibility.
GM has already received at least $13bn in aid from the US government and seems likely to enter bankruptcy. It is looking to more environmentally-friendly models as consumers have abandoned their expensive trucks and cars. “We are excited to be working together to demonstrate a dramatically different approach to urban mobility,” said Jim Norrod, chief of Segway. Segway introduced its personal transporter in 2002 and has sold more than 2,000 in the UK. They are capable of speeds up to 12mph and cost £4,795.
The personal scooters came to international prominence when US President George W Bush fell off one while on holiday in 2003.
27
Mar
Mar
Vodafone UK has signed an agreement with Twitter that will allow its customers to send updates to, and receive SMS notifications from, the messaging network of the moment.
As of today, Vodafone customers will be able to receive text messages from people they choose to follow via SMS on Twitter and send text messages to a dedicated Shortcode, 86444, for their ‘tweets, @replies, or to follow someone on the go. When receiving a text message from Twitter containing a URL, customers will be able to click on the link and access the webpage directly from their mobiles.
The SMS updates posted on Twitter will be free of charge for the first few weeks from launch; after that, they will be part of customers’ bundles. After the free period, regular charges will apply to customers without bundles, but all text message updates sent from Twitter will remain free of charge.
“We are delighted to be the only operator in the UK today to offer Twitter on SMS to our customers,” says Al Russell, Vodafone UK’s Head of Vodafone Internet services. “Since we made social networks on the move both simple to use and great value, customers have flocked to using these services, which have exploded in popularity.”
Twitter’s Director of Mobile Business Development, Kevin Thau, adds:
“Mobile texting extends the power of Twitter’s real-time network in a simple but significant way. Twitter is the messaging network you didn’t know you needed until you experience it over SMS.”
Vodafone says the new service is easy to use on any mobile device and offers fast mobile access to one of the most popular social networks in the world. Twitter joins a long list of social networks available through Vodafone live! since December 08.
Vodafone adds that since it began including mobile Internet access in its price plans, giving customers unlimited access to the mobile Internet, social networks have topped Vodafone’s popularity charts for the most visited sites on mobiles.
26
Mar
Mar
At next week’s CTIA Wireless Show, Opera Software will be announcing the new Opera Mobile 9.7 server-accelerated browser for smartphones and mobile devices. Opera Mobile 9.7 features Opera Turbo, Opera’s breakthrough compression technology, along with the company’s latest Presto 2.2 rendering engine (also used in Opera 10 desktop) and full support for dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax and Flash (for accessing popular sites like Facebook and YouTube).
In today’s tough business climate where customer expectations are ever-increasing, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo can help carriers reduce network congestion while helping mobile device manufacturers bring increased speed and a more rich Web browsing experience to their customer and users.
For carriers specifically, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo provides a more consistent and compelling full Internet experience by compressing data up to 80%, thus reducing unwanted traffic and congestion and allowing users to access the Web regardless of network limitations.
For mobile device manufacturers, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo can make for a faster, more rich browsing experience by leveraging current device capabilities and utilizing hardware resources more effectively. Opera Turbo offloads Web page rendering to Opera servers freeing up device resources. Even devices with limited hardware capabilities show improved page download rates and better overall performance.
“Today, carriers and mobile device manufacturers alike are looking for solutions that take advantage of existing technologies and investments while trying to maintain a high level of service for their customers,” explains Rod Hamlin, Senior Vice President for the Americas for Opera Software. “Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo gives our business customers to ability to bring a rich Internet browsing experience to their mobile device and to the end-user without having to allocate new resources and development costs.”
Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo also features better standards support (100% Acid 3 test) and developer tools, hardware acceleration Open GL ES, and support for Google Gears.
To learn more, check out the Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo demo video:
http://www.opera.com/discover/video/mobileturbo/
23
Mar
Mar
Christophe Langlois of Visible Banking interviewed Matthias Kroener during a conference in Paris. The event was focusing on Social Media and its impact on the financial industry.
Matthias Kroener, CEO of Fidor AG, talked about their Social Media Marketing Strategy realized in teamwork with Ahead of Time.
18
Mar
Mar
I just read “A better Street View comes form Canada” at ReadWriteWeb and I had to think back to a meeting I had in Shanghai, China, last year with an innovative StartUp.
City8 offers a much better quality, zoom function and interaction. The StreetView has been created using high resolution photography. City8 has already digitalized most of the big cities in China and is expanding its service rapidly.
The technology and the team surprised right away when we visited them during the Trend Tour for our client. It seems to be even better than the Canadian Street Maps.
See an Shanghai Street View in the streets of Pudong:
09
Mar
Mar
VentureBeat has written about Yahoo-owned email and collaboration software Zimbra before, but it looks like they’re far from being the only fans. In fact, Zimbra announced that has crossed the 40 million user mark. And those are paid mailboxes, not free accounts.
Zimbra has flown a bit under the radar — it’s not exactly obscure, but I don’t watch it as closely as, say, Gmail. It turns out, however, that Zimbra actually has 31.4 million users in the United States, squeaking by the 31.2 million unique monthly visitors Gmail received in the US during the month of January (according to comScore). And while we’re beating up on Google, we should also note that Google recently reported having 10 million users for the free and pay versions of its business application bundle Google Apps — again, well behind Zimbra. These numbers also imply Zimbra might soon pass other popular webmail services like AOL Email and Windows Live Hotmail.
Granted, you risk entering “apples and oranges” territory when you compare a consumer-driven webmail product like Hotmail with something that’s more focused on businesses and institutions like Zimbra. (Update: A lot of Zimbra’s growth was likely fueled by the big deal it struck with Comcast in 2007, as several commenters note below. A spokeswoman says deals with Comcast and other service providers “represent a large number of Zimbra’s user base” but adds that the company isn’t at liberty to offer details.) Throw in the fact that we’re measuring Zimbra’s self-reported numbers against numbers from comScore and Google, and things start looking pretty dodgy. But even if we stick to Zimbra’s numbers alone, the growth is quite impressive — a year ago, it reported less than 12 million paid mailboxes. Let’s hope Zimbra continues that growth despite the departure of founder Satish Dharmaraj.
The news also ties into a blog post by Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins earlier today. Pointing to new Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz’ remark that email is becoming “increasingly critical” to the struggling company, Hopkins notes that email accounts for more than third of Yahoo traffic. Of course, Yahoo Mail and Zimbra are separate products, but Zimbra’s numbers underline Hopkins’ and Bartz’ message — if there’s a way for Yahoo to get out of its current mess, email is going to play a huge role.
20
Feb
Feb
Here are some of my pictures from the Mobile World Congress (MWC09).
20
Feb
Feb
Video Interview filmed at the NTT Docomo booth at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2009 in Barcelona. In Japan there are already over 53 Million mobile phones with NFC functionality in the market. NFC enables mobile payment, local promotions (coupons) or easy mobile to mobile money transactions.
Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre distance. The technology is a simple extension of the ISO 14443 proximity-card standard (contactless card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, and is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and payment. NFC is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones. (Via Wikipedia)
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