Acer is in the process of launching a new kind of netbook.  This is quite a bit different from previous models as it has a longer battery life.  This netbook has a slimline casing, an 11.6″ 16:9 display, and a 1366×768 resolution.  The netbook has an Intel Atom z530 processor and a Poulsbo chipset.  The graphics are GMA500.

Other features include ethernet and a VGA port.  The Aspire One netbook has about an 8 hour advanced battery runtime.  The standard battery itself hits about 4 hours.   This is believed to be the netbook that recently passed through an FCC test.

[via SlashGear]

Microsoft, Federated Media, and Twitter have partnered on a website that I think is a pretty lame concept here.  The concept is that Twitter aggregates tweets from business executives and puts it on the homepage of this website.  The service is called ExecTweets.  Some of the technology executives who they track include Sam Decker, Craig Newmark, Jeffrey Hayzlett, Padmasree Warrior, etc.

Twitter gave the site their blessing and accepted the site to use their logo.  There is a revenue sharing partnership between Federated Media and Twitter for this website.

Personally I think that this service is a terrible idea.  This experience takes away from the whole Twitter environment.  What makes Twitter so great is that you can choose to follow people that have similar interests as you or is the exact opposite as you.  Regardless you customize your experiences but in the ExecTweet world, everything is preset.

That is the same reason why I did not like AllTop initially.  It is just a bunch of RSS feeds that was preset based on what Guy Kawasaki thinks should belong there.  The user cannot customize anything.  Ask anyone at the big 3 search engine companies and they can tell you that everyone wants their homepage customizable.

Some people are claiming that through this website “Twitter has found a business model.”  Clearly a revenue sharing agreement isn’t a revenue model because they are not utilizing their entire user base.  They’re just allowing themselves to receive money from a website that anyone could recreate and not share money with them.  Want an example of a site that aggregates users from Twitter and doesn’t give the company royalties?  Kevin Roses’ WeFollow.com.

Satish Dharmaraj is the founder of corporate e-mail software company Zimbra.  Yahoo! acquired the company for $350 million in 2007.  With that kind of money it does not come to any surprise that Dharmaraj would join a VC firm.  Redpoint Ventures has announced that they have hired Dharmaraj as a partner of the company.

After many executives leave a company, they move on to a new venture or become an entrepreneur-in-residence at a VC firm, but Dharmaraj decided to become a direct employee.  Satish left Yahoo! this past January. Some other Yahoo! alumni executives that joined VC firms include David Goldberg, Jeff Weiner, and Andrew Braccia.  Weiner now is the President of LinkedIn.

Currently Zimbra has over 20 million paid users.  Comcast helped Zimbra’s user base grow tremendously.

Some of the companies that Redpoint invested in includes Scribd, SocialVibe, Adap.tv, Entertonement, and Oodle.

[via BoomTown]

John Mayer is one of the most popular Twitter users.  The singer has well over 300,000 followers on Twitter and writes some of the most entertaining “tweets.”  Mayer also has several popular clips on Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die website.  Basically Mayer’s social media footprint is massive, but now its coming at a cost: his girlfriend Jennifer Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston is one today’s sexiest actresses according to many publications.  She has starred in hit TV series Friends and acted in popular movies such as Marley & Me, Rumor Has It, Along Came Polly, Bruce Almighty, and Office Space.  But apparently she has a thing against using Twitter too much.

Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer have reportedly ended their relationship because John Mayer enjoyed using Twitter too much.  “John suddenly stopped calling her or returning her emails and when she would finally catch up with him, he’d say: ‘I’ve been so busy with work. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call you back,” stated a source with the Telegraph.  “Jen was fuming. There he was, telling her he didn’t have time for her and yet his page was filled with Twitter updates.

The source added “Every few hours, sometimes minutes, he’d update with some stupid line. And in her mind, she was like ‘He has time for all this Twittering, but he can’t send me a text, an email, make a call?’”

Mayer supposedly did not deny avoiding her.  When Aniston decided to end the relationship he just simply agreed and said he was sorry that the relationship did not work out.  Basically he took the break-up like a man.

Did Mayer react to the break-up on Twitter?  You betcha.  He wrote “My six word story: “‘This heart didn’t come with instructions.’”

Redlasso is a company that used to provide clips from news programs to bloggers to embed on their own websites.  NBC, FOX, and CBS did not like Redlasso ganking their clips so they decided to sue the company.  But FOX suddenly had a change of heart.

Fox made a deal with Redlasso now.  Redlasso will be able to use video news content from 27 of FOX’s regional news stations.

Redlasso started in 2007 and was heavily used by The Huffington Post.  What Redlasso was doing was illegal.  They recorded and distributed TV content without the permission of the stations.  Last May the company received a cease and desist letter and the company ignored them for the most part.  Last July FOX and NBC filed the lawsuit against Redlasso and the site discontinued their services shortly after.

FOX’s content will be available through Redlasso starting in April.  Bloggers will be able to use clips which could be as long as 10 minutes through Redlasso.  Redlasso CEO Al McGowan started that lawsuits with all other television networks have now been settled.  The company is currently looking for ways to expand content offerings.

My guess is that Redlasso struck a deal that involves advertising revenue sharing with FOX.  We may see ads in the clips that Redlasso offers to bloggers.

[via TechCrunch]

Dan Rosensweig is the former COO of Yahoo! Inc. and former President of CNET.  Now Rosensweig is getting into gaming by joining Activision Blizzard Inc. to head up the Guitar Hero franchise.  Rosensweig quit Yahoo! in 2006 after working there for five years in product development and marketing.  Rosensweig left around the same time Terry Semel did.

Coincidentally Activision’s current CEO Bobby Kotick served on the Yahoo! board of directors up until last year.  When Rosensweig left Yahoo!, he worked at Quadrangle Group.  Quadrangle is a private equity firm based out of New York. Rosensweig was the Silicon Valley representation of the firm.

Rosensweig’s responsibilities at Activision will be to maintain the whole Guitar Hero franchise.  The franchise was put together by Activision’s Red Octane unit and Neversoft studios.  Guitar Hero has had three blockbuster games in the franchise, but some analysts believe that the growth for music games may be slowing down.  Rosenweig needs to make sure Guitar Hero does not become obsolete.

“With a platform and content that universally engages a wide range of audiences, Guitar Hero has incredible growth potential,” stated Rosensweig. “I look forward to continuing to develop Guitar Hero into an even more successful enterprise.”

[via LAT]

Scott Sanders of Chattanooga, TN created a group shortly after the new Facebook design launched called Petition Against The “New Facebook.” About 1% of Facebook’s total user base joined the group to indicate that they do not like the new design of Facebook. This is the second major overhaul in design that Facebook has made. These users want a way to switch back to the old Facebook design, but that option is not available.

It is believed that Facebook made the new design change in an effort to replicate the success of Twitter.  Recently Facebook made an offer to acquire Twitter for about $500 million in cash and stock options.

In the group that Sanders put together, he collected reasons why users do not like the new Facebook.  Here are the 10 reasons:

10. Left side shortcuts to apps and groups are gone tied with the layout is too wide.
9. There is too much blank space on the main profile page and it’s boring.
8. The new layout is starting to look more and more like MySpace.
7. Personality is gone from everyone’s main page.
6. You can no longer minimize or move applications around the way you want to.
5. The new layout is not centered and looks messy.
4. The wall and mini-feed are now one thing.
3. The new layout looks confusing and is no longer user friendly.
2. Many applications are no longer compatable with the new layout.
1. Applications and general info are on different pages.

Gary Brolsma is one of the most famous kids on the Internet.  Brolsma posted a video of himself dancing to the song “Dragostea din tei” by a group called O-Zone on Newgrounds.com.  In less than three months, the video was seen over 2 million times.  In the original Numa Numa dance, Brolsma was awarded $45,000.  In the video, Brolsma was wearing headphones, lip syncing, and throwing his arms in the air.  Since 2004, the video has generated over 18 million times.

The Numa Numa dance song is now a part of pop culture.  Rap artist T.I. used the Numa Numa song for his song “Live Your Life” that features Rihanna.

Now Brolsma is back in the spotlight as Geico has decided to use him for a commercial. In this commercial, Brolsma is dancing the same goofy dance and wearing headphones to Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.” In the background, the Geico gecko mascot is dancing along. This video was put together by The Martin Agency. The parody will be placed on several video hosting websites such as YouTube, MetaCafe, DailyMotion etc.

Below is the video:

[via BI]