Tag: WEB 2.0

After months of testing, the dramatically redesigned Digg has finally been opened to the public. Upon visiting the site, things immediately look different, but, hopefully, are sufficiently familiar to keep the social news site's user base from abandoning it. The once-king of viral news has increasingly suffered at the hands of more convenient sharing platforms like Twitter and Facebook, so, in ...

Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, like Prince, thinks the Web is dead. Unlike Prince, though, Anderson actually has some facts to back up his claim. In the cover story of the September issue of Wired, both Anderson and Michael Wolff use Internet traffic trends to support the argument that smartphone apps and e-readers have gradually begun to overtake the Web browser as our primary ...

The 2004 and 2008 elections made it abundantly clear that Republicans had a long way to go if they intended to catch up to the Democrats when it comes to politicking 2.0. Obama was thrust into office based largely on his success in leveraging the Web to rally the youth vote and has carried that tech savvy into the White House. In the meantime the GOP has struggled to even pull off simple tasks, ...

In speaker technology, the opposite of a tweeter is a woofer, which pumps low-end frequencies while the tweeter amplifies higher-range sounds. On the Web, a tweeter is one who frequents Twitter, using the micro-blogging service to blast 140-character-or-less messages called tweets. So Twitter's opposite is, naturally, Woofer, a new micro-, err, macro-blogging service that requires a minimum of ...

The usefulness of searchable, user-generated content apparently knows no bounds -- especially for zealous researchers who set out to determine exactly what all those bloggers, tweeters, and status updaters really think. Studies have shown that a nation's mood can be foretold on the Net, Twitter can be used to produce psychological profiles, and even desktops speak volumes. The analytical ...

"All that a music review does now is reinforce an opinion somebody already has," music writer Christopher Weingarten said at the 140 Character Conference, an event in New York that addressed Twitter's effect on music and culture. He went on to say, "If it doesn't fit into 140 characters, it's not worth saying." Weingarten has written for some big-time musical publications, like Rolling Stone, ...

Since the first reports that Iranians had taken to Twitter to express their outrage over the dubious reelection of incumbent leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir Hossein Mousavi on Monday, Iranian officials have reportedly cracked down on online media. Tuesday, the Iranian government banned international reporters from leaving their headquarters and filming the ongoing protests, claiming to have ...

Trent Reznor, the man behind industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails (NIN), is no straggler when it comes to embracing the Internet-age. Way back in 2007, months before Radiohead offered its album 'In Rainbows' for free via download, Trent straight-up told fans at a show in Australia to steal music via peer-to-peer sites. Several months later, in 2008, he gave away the first part of NIN's four-part ...

According to at least one estimation, the English language has collected its one millionth word. The Global Language Monitor, whose authority on the issue is on the questionable side, got us geared up for the Million Word March in May. At that time the Language Monitor was expecting the millionth word to be "noob" or "defriend," but both were beaten to the punch by "Web 2.0." The Global ...

Two independent studies show that Twitter is all about man-on-man action, and that teens are having a hard time embracing microblogging, respectively. Researchers over at Harvard Business surveyed 300,542 users in May, discovering that, though men and women for the most part follow the same number of tweeters, a man is twice as likely to follow another man than he is a woman. In addition, a ...

Married on MySpace Trailer We know what you're thinking... "It's my wedding day and it should be perfect." So, why not let millions of MySpace members decide on every detail? It seems that the Web 2.0 has finally hit weddings, although this one comes tethered to enough corporate sponsorships to field a PGA Tour event. 'Married on MySpace' is a new online reality show where voters can select ...

What happens when micro-blogging turns macro-psychotic? On February 11th, marketing consultant April Dunford posted an annoyed message to Twitter, the mircro-blogging site, about being condescendingly scolded by a newspaper reporter. Although she named no names, the reporter in question, David George-Cosh of the National Post, saw her 'tweet' and took offense in a big way. His venomous, ...

Even if you don't agree with her politics, you must admit Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has a sense of humor. To celebrate the launch of the U.S. Congress' YouTube channels for the House and Senate, Pelosi posted a video of her cats roaming around her Capitol office, playing with her gavel, and enjoying the view. That alone works well enough for us. That she Rickrolls us halfway through the ...

In case you've been waiting for it, the second Internet bubble might be on the verge of bursting. Banks and mortgages aren't the only things collapsing in the now official recession -- Web 2.0 startups are starting to drop like flies. The most recent collapse is Twitter-competitor Pownce. The feature-packed micro-blogging service, backed by Digg founder Kevin Rose, was bought up by SixApart, the ...

It's time to assemble your pole, bait the line and drop a hook into the wild waters of the Internet. Yes, Switched fans, we're looking to get the catch of the day, PhishTank style. The folks at PhishTank, part of OpenDNS, have tapped the social-linking-collaborative environment of Web 2.0 to assemble what could be the master list of all phishing scams out there on the Web today. A phishing scam ...