Monthly Archives: March 2007
Yahoo! Mail’s Unlimited Storage and API
Unlimited Storage:
Yahoo! Mail has really been stepping up their game. It was not too long ago when Yahoo! released a new version of Mail. Recently the company announced that it would be unleashing an unlimited storage feature in May 2007. I don’t believe any other free web e-mail client offers the same, but perhaps GMail will now have a motive to go beyond its current 2.8+ GB storage access. All of Yahoo! Mail’s 250 million users will have the unlimited storage. Those who paid $20 for a premium 2GB account would be refunded.
API:
The Yahoo! Developer Network announced that they would be releasing several APIs for users to build applications. The applications allow users to list messages, display folders, and compose/send messages. According to the Yahoo! Developer Network blog, developers can also earn money through the API.
“Yes, cash. With this release, Yahoo! Mail Web Service developers can earn referral commissions by building compelling applications targeted at our premium email users. For a trial period, Yahoo! Mail is offering an incentive for developers to build applications using the full functionality available for premium Yahoo! Mail accounts. Specifically, Yahoo! Mail is currently providing a commission of $10.00 for every new Yahoo! Mail Plus account referred by approved developers,” wrote Chad Dickerson, Head of Yahoo! Developer Network.
Currently there are code samples available in PERL, .NET, JAVA, Python, and PHP. Selected applications created by developers would be displayed on the Yahoo! Developer Network Gallery.
Categories Yahoo!
2 Comments
Greylock Partners Leads $4 Million Series A Investment In Payoneer
 
Greylock Partners announced today that they would be investing $4 million in New York City based company, Payoneer. Payoneer is a company that allows companies and business partners to pay each other via MasterCard online. Payoneer is a private company that markets and manages prepaid MasterCard cards and works with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the First Bank of Delaware to process card transactions.
Upon realizing the importance of developing strong partnerships with Web 2.0 companies, Payoneer currently works with selected business allies such as Metacafe, Amie St., oDesk, and BitWine. Using such a service could also be very beneficial for Web 2.0 start-ups with only a few employees that share office expenses.
“The Internet payout space may well become a killer application in the next few years as Internet companies transition to smarter ways to pay out their partners around the globe,” stated Moshe Mor, a partner at Greylock Partners. “Payoneer’s team has deep payments experience, and an already impressive track rate of customer adoption and solutions. We’re delighted to work in partnership with Payoneer to fuel the company’s expanded market presence.”Â
“Web-driven businesses have the unique opportunity to use payments as a retention tool, not just a cost line-item,” stated Yuval Tal, the CEO and founder of Payoneer. “With our additional funding on board, we’ll be adding to our team, expanding our service offerings, and working aggressively to win new accounts during this exciting high-growth time in our market.”Â
Payoneer was founded in 2005 and maintains a research and development facility in Tel Aviv, Israel.   The co-branded MasterCards provided by Payoneer can be used anywhere whether it is in any store, online, or ATMs that MasterCards are accepted.
Proven Model Cases:
Citigroup Inc./eCount Inc.
“The prepaid card market is experiencing high growth, and is currently estimated at more than $2 trillion worldwide, as corporations and consumers continue to move from paper checks to electronic-based payment methods” states a Citibank press release announcement of the fairly recent eCount Inc. acquisition.
eBay Inc./PayPal
Another proven model is the legendary $1.5 billion acquisition of PayPal. In July 2002 eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock. PayPal now has 114 million customers as of October 2006 over 103 markets and 17 different currencies.
It is expected that with this round of funding that Payoneer will become hypercompetitive amongst some of the major aforementioned players out there. I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll start seeing the Payoneer logo quite a bit more as we shop online.
[Information Source: E-mail from PR Representative for Greylock Partners]
Categories Amie Street, BitWine, Citigroup Inc., eBay, Greylock Partners, Metacafe, oDesk, Payoneer, PayPal
1 Comment
Alexa Responds to Alexaholic/Statsaholic Controversy
Two days ago, I wrote about how Amazon/Alexa is blocking Statsaholic from using their API. Today I’ll report the other side of the story: Alexa‘s side.
Alexa says that using the name Alexa is not tolerable in any circumstances, so it had a problem with the name Alexaholic. “We reached out to Mr. Hornbaker [founder of Alexaholic] last year in an attempt to resolve the problem amicably. We even explored an acquisition, which we didn’t have to do,” writes Geoffrey Mack, an Alexa representative on his blog. “Unfortunately, it became clear over time that Mr. Hornbaker did not want to stop trading off the Alexa name. This left Alexa with no alternative but to bring legal action to recover the misappropriated name.”
Hornbaker then was legally forced to change the name Alexaholic. Hornbaker chose the name Statsaholic, but was still using the Alexaholic domain to transfer traffic to Statsaholic. Mack also wrote “Mr. Hornbaker is in fact not using our web service to generate the traffic graphs on his website. Instead of obtaining the traffic data for a fee using the API which Alexa offers, he has chosen to pirate proprietary Alexa data by taking Alexa traffic graphs without permission. Mr. Hornbaker is now trying to extract more value from Alexa by turning this into a PR issue, which he admits is a deliberate strategy.”
Alexa stated that they will be pursuing this issue aggressively and make sure that they are compensated for any losses. In this case, I’d say that Alexa has a stronger argument especially because of the piracy involved.
Categories Alexa, Alexaholic, Amazon, Statsaholic
4 Comments
The 2006 YouTube Video Award Winners
After five days of rankings, seven videos walked away with the following prizes:
Most Creative: Ok Cupid – Here it Goes Again
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI[/youtube]
Best Comedy: Smosh Short 2: Stranded Smosh
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCd_i7wW87Q[/youtube]
Best Commentary: Hotness Prevails
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rcjaBWvx0[/youtube]
Best Series: Ask A Ninja
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmss2lg-ug[/youtube]
Best Music Video: Terra Naomi – Say It’s Possible
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4[/youtube]
Most Inspirational: Free Hugs Campaign
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4[/youtube]
Most Adorable: Kiwi!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs[/youtube]
Categories YouTube
Leave a comment
Google to Ramp Up 2008 Presidential Election Involvement
As the 2008 Presidential election is nearing, the world of Web 2.0 is finding ways to influence voters both old and young. Presidential candidate profiles are now starting to appear on #1 social network, MySpace.com. As you may remember, in 1992 President Bill Clinton increased his chances of winning by appearing on MTV frequently and talking directly to young voters about his goals. Using youth programming as a medium for promotion was a good idea. As a result, this also increased MTV’s credibility because it proved that it cares youth involvement with America’s socio-cultural, political, and environmental factors that affect our country today.Â
Fast forward 15 years, the new medium that influences young voters include web video and social networking.  YouTube Inc., property of Google is one of those mediums. Recently a video spoof of an Apple commercial from 1984 started making an appearance on YouTube, has about 2.7 million views, and features a supporter of Barack Obama throwing a sledgehammer into a video of Hillary Clinton.
Elliot Schrage, Google’s VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs stated “I think the difference is we are now recognizing that this is a segment that we have to pay attention to in a way that we hadn’t.” According to political marketing firm, MSCH Partners, campaigns spent $12 million worth of advertising online in 2004 whereas $1.6 billion was spent on television ads. But now since more and more people are watching TV shows on the web, online political spending is more than likely going to increase substantially.
Google sponsored an event for political consultants recently where three Google representatives, including the head of their political sales team, discussed the potential of online advertising via YouTube and other Google products. “They were out essentially selling a product: Use us,” stated David Haase, a Mindshare Interactive Campaigns consultant. “They’re trying to become the gold standard.”
[Information Source: L.A. Times]
Categories Google, YouTube
Leave a comment
Recent Tech Funding: Voxpop, OutSpark, HyperText Solutions, RoofTop Comedy, The Onion News Network, Crush or Flush, Glimpse
VoxPop Network Corporation is based in San Francisco, CA. Voxpop is an online entertainment company which is short for Vox Populi (“voice of the people” in Latin). Voxpop.tv is a contest website startup that has basketball conference contests and also publishes its games on third party websites such CBS Radio and Entertainment Weekly. The investor is David Shen and he is a former VP of User Experience and Design Team at Yahoo! for 8 years. Other companies that Shen has funded in include Outspark Inc. (see below)Meetro Inc., Search Physics Inc., and Fanlib Inc.
Some of the featured games on Voxpop include:
- Logo Showdown, a game where you choose and vote for your favorite SEC /ACC/Big 12 sports team logos and create a bracket.
- Angelic Angelina, a game where you create a bracket of Angelina Jolie’s best acting movies.
- Several others that involve creating a bracket of your favorite type of sandals, handbags, Brad Pitt movie, etc.
Some of the prizes include cash and a copy of the movie that won the bracket.
Another company that was angel funded by Yahoo! alumni, David Shen is OutSpark Inc. [website currently unavailable]. Other investors include Altos Ventures and Doll Capital Management. Outspark is expected to develop casual Adobe Flash games of all types. OutSpark Inc. is currently in “stealth mode.”
Hypertext Solutions, LLC considers itself, “the first Internet application to tap the potential of ‘intelligent’ data on the Web.” Steve Hall of Vulcan Capital is an investor. The company is actively seeking computer engineers in the areas of A.I., data mining, and JavaScript.
Rooftop Comedy is a San Francisco, CA based company that has recently raised angel funding. The company won the the award for best investment idea at Investorfest 2006. The company was created and run by Will Rogers, former Senior Vice President of Icon Medialab’s Web Development group. RooptopComedy has been partnering with comedy clubs in different areas to put their skits online. They include Funny Bone (St. Louis, MO), Go Bananas (Cincinnati, OH), Crackers Comedy Club (Indianapolis, IN), San Francisco Comedy Club (San Francisco, CA), and Chicago Underground Comedy (Chicago, IL).
TheOnion.com is taking their parody news services to the world of video. The company invested $1 million into the idea of the Onion News Network (ONN) and will be a parody of news program channel, CNN (The Cable News Network). Below is a video teaser of the upcoming programming:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2C0ZZIKi3Y[/youtube]
IceBreaker Inc.is a Seattle based mobile software company that outsources development to Beijing, China. IceBreaker Inc. is the parent company of Crush or Flush which was launched on January 16, 2007 with the purpose of providing a way to flirt, chat, and meet people with similar interests in your area on mobile phones. When browsing Crush or Flush on your mobile phone, you can click on “crush” if you think the profile picture is attractive or “flush” if you think that the profile picture is not very aesthetic.Investors of Crush or Flush are several angel investors and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The founders of Crush or Flush are Michael Robinson and Eric Hennings, both former Microsoft employees. Robinson has previously created a website in China called renren Media. renren Media has previous funding by News Corp.
Glimpse.com is a website for centralizing fashion shopping offers. The target audience of Glimpse.com is for women that shop at stores such as Banana Republic, eLuxury, Macy’s, DKNY, etc. The company was founded by Frank Han (general manager of HSN.com), Jane Saltzman (Executive Vice President in Creative and Merchandising at Discovery Channel), and Steve Lemon (Vice President at Symantec). The amount of funding is not disclosed, but is supposedly a large amount. The funding was provided by Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures.
[Information Source: alarm:clock]
Amazon/Alexa Blocking Statsholic (formerly known as Alexaholic) Altogether
I first wrote about Alexaholic on October 7, 2007, before Alexa revamped its website to run faster and provide more traffic comparison options. It looks like that on March 18, Alexa took legal action against Ron Hornbaker about use of the name, Alexaholic. So the website came back online as the name, Statsaholic. Now it appears that Alexa is blocking the Statsaholic’s use of the API altogether.
“While blocking the hotlinking of their images is certainly within their right, in this case they are selectively blocking just this website, because tens of thousands of other websites, and Alexa’s own free widgets, hotlink their traffic graphs in exactly the same manner as I’m doing. Just so Alexa knows, I would gladly pay a reasonable fee to serve their graph images here, but to date they have no official api for those images,” wrote Hornbaker on the Statsaholic pages. Hornbaker is currently looking to ways to keep the website up around the system, but is having a hard time getting around the API.
Before Alexa had blocked Statsaholic from using the API, visitors of the Statsaholic could embed graphs with Alexa data on their own websites. I don’t believe that this feature has yet been introduced by Alexa yet, so the company may have felt threatened that Statsaholic was using their data without receiving any compensation. However, looking at the previous statement by Hornbaker, it seems that he is prepared to offer some sort of compensation for continuous use of the data. Whether it will pan out or not is still a mystery, but we’re rooting for Hornbaker as I see Statsaholic being a website that utilizes the API quite well.
Another questionable website that went down which I covered before that had the name Alexa in it was Alexa Street which also utilized the Alexa API. Alexa Street was a game where you can buy and sell shares of website rankings based on Alexa data. If a website’s Alexa ranking dropped, but was expected to rise shortly after, you clearly wanted to buy those shares and sell them again when it reaches the high point. I am not sure whether Alexa took legal action against Alexa Street though.
If you look at Alexa’s current Movers & Shakers for this week, it appears that Alexaholic is one of the Movers & Shakers that dropped in rankings the most. I think that this should be removed seeing as how Alexa is responsible for the drop.
Categories Alexa, Alexaholic, Amazon, Statsaholic
3 Comments
YouTube Vs. Viacom on The Daily Show Hosted By Demetri Martin
This is hilarious. It’s a clip of The Daily Show where Demetri Martin, host of Trendspotting is discussing what would happen in the court room where Viacom owner Sumner Redstone would face off against Google guys, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Found this via Mashable.
Categories Viacom Inc, YouTube
4 Comments
Bill Gates Receiving Harvard Degree and U of M Now Offering Social Network Classes
As a new college graduate, it is of my interest to ensure to report about the involvement of higher institutions in the world of Web 2.0.  As you may know, I previously reported when the University of Wisconsin inked a deal with Google Print and how IBM added a Web 2.0 class to the University of Arizona.
Bill Gates officially signed as the commencement speaker at Harvard University’s graduation ceremony this year on June 7.
This is a big moment for Gates as he will be speaking at the very same university that he dropped out of. A couple years ago, Steve Jobs (founder of Apple) delivered a very dynamic commencement speech at Stanford University. I look forward to reading Mr. Gates’ transcript after the ceremony as well.
“I am very pleased that the Harvard community will have the opportunity to hear from Bill Gates on June 7,” stated Paul Finnegan, the president of the Harvard Alumni Association. “His contributions to the world of business and technology, and the great example he has set through his far-reaching philanthropy, will rightfully put him on center stage in Harvard Yard. I look forward to greeting him in June.”
Gates will receive an honorary degree from Harvard.
Another interesting announcement made today was that the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is introducing a master’s program that focuses on social networking.Â
Through the Michigan’s School of Information (SI), students will be able to register for the first graduate-degree specialization in social computing. The program will also offer specializations in Incentive-Centered Design, Community Informatics, Information Analysis and Retrieval, Preservation of Information, Information Policy, Library and Information Services, Archives and Records Management, and Human-Computer Interaction.
“The depth of our curriculum in social computing is unparalleled. Rather than a single course as you might find in other programs, we offer a range of in-depth courses in the technologies and applications that are driving the Web 2.0 revolution,” stated professor Paul Resnick.
As a current Ann Arbor resident, I am glad to see the University of Michigan taking initiative in training students about the importance of Web 2.0. Google founder, Larry Page and Skype founder, Niklas Zennström were both educated at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
I Take It Back, WordPress: I’m Switching Back to IE 7, Here’s Why
Four days ago, I wrote a detailed post about how WordPress 2.1 and WordPress 2.1.2 and how it doesn’t work well with the Pulse 2.0 back-end while using Internet Explorer.  Well WordPress, I have you figured out. Essentially, I couldn’t even click on the Pulse 2.0 Visual editor when I was logging in from http://www.pulse2.com‘s Admin, but it does work when I log into http://pulse2.com‘s Admin. I have no idea why this is the case, but this is just something that I discovered when testing the Admin page tonight.
From now on, I’ll be using Internet Explorer to write my posts again and also to the browse the Net.’
Reasons for this:
- Internet Explorer 7.0 has some significant improvements over Internet Explorer 6.0
- Alexa toolbar
- Viewing fonts and websites with Internet Explorer may take a bit longer to load, but seem to be sharper than Firefox
- Lastly, there are add-ons to make IE 7.0 more Firefox-like listed on the Google Operating System blog. I’ll be installing them shortly.Â
WordPress development team, I owe you an apology for thinking that the back-end didn’t work for IE. However, there are still some bugs in the system, but I’m sure you are looking into it.
Categories Wordpress
Leave a comment