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pJust a few days ago, mobile social network a href="http://www.gypsii.com/" target="_blank"GyPSii/a received considerable appraisal from the house of Nokia. The service’s PlaceMe application, which enables users to geotag photo, video, and audio recordings to be shared with friends, was given a a href="http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2008/pr200810149.html" target="_blank"Symbian Star Developer Award/a for its efforts./p pThe award was chosen for a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/02/10/gypsii-to-go-live-at-mwc/"GyPSii/a by Navteq, a map maker and a href="http://www.mashable.com/2007/10/01/nokia-navteq/"a Nokia subsidiary/a since October 2007, and of course it was Nokia which a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/06/24/nokia-acquires-symbian/"acquired Symbian this summer/a./p pIt hasn’t been very long since GyPSii first arrived on the scene. The company went live with its networking service at Barcelona’s GSMA Mobile World Congress in February of this year. So it has more or less grown in tandem with the a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/03/05/gypsii-iphone/"mobile social networking/a market at large. Nothing all that outstanding, quite frankly. Standard-issue, you might say./p pYet it has clearly drawn especial interest within the world of a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/06/23/nokia-buys-plazes/"Nokia/a, and by extension, Navteq and Symbian. Does this help GyPSii’s case amid the competition? Perhaps. Perhaps not. To be semi-directly honored for development by the most financially and quantitatively productive mobile conglomerate on the planet seems no small mark on one’s record. And more to the point, it was reported that Nokia acquired remaining Symbian shares to the tune of $410 million this past June, and nine months prior wrote Navteq a check for $8.1 billion. All said, it most definitely sees promise in the mobile location market, and its suave little endorsement of GyPSii only adds fuel to the fire that it has been building for the past year or so./p pOf course, there’s no reason to come to an assumption as to Nokia’s or Navteq’s thinking for the award given the GyPSii team. Whether an acquisition in line is really for anyone to assume might be true or disregard entirely. But I imagine there is a logical way to see this bit of news, and that is to say that GyPSii is presumably headed to higher ground./p p(Image source: a href="http://www.darlamack.com/darlamack/2008/04/are-you-a-gypsi.html" target="_blank"Darlamack.com/a)/p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2008/03/05/gypsii-iphone/"GyPSii Officially Launches For The iPhone/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/06/24/nokia-acquires-symbian/"Nokia Acquires Symbian, Opens It Up/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/10/gypsii-to-go-live-at-mwc/"Location-Based Social Network GyPSii To Go Live At Mobile World Congress/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/07/android-symbian/"Android? Meh, Says Symbian/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/01/babelgum-film-festival/"Babelgum Launches Film Festival/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/03/11/myloki/"MyLoki: Wi-Fi-Based Mapping Service to Share Your Location/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/03/03/nokia-microsoft-silverlight-mobile-symbian/"Nokia Bringing Silverlight to Symbian Phones/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/gypsiilogo.png" alt="" /

Yesterday

pSomething tells me Sprint CEO Dan Hesse is a little bitter about his company getting passed by the #4 wireless telecom operator to become debut provider of an Android-based handset that the world has seen so far./p pBeing a lossy network at #3 might have something to do with it. According to Sinead Carew of a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/10/24/sprint-android-not-good-enough-yet/" target="_blank"Reuters/a, Hesse was quoted as telling the National Press Club that the Android open source operating system is not “good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”/p pNot to be a stickler for accuracy, but I don’t believe Sprint could technically brand Android as its own. The carrier might affix its logo to a device installed with the operating system, and might deliver the device custom crafted to appeal to Sprint users and the various mobile broadband-enabled services offered by the company. But the Sprint brand on a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/09/23/google-g1/"Android/a? No, I don’t think so. That sort of defeats the purpose of the so-called a href="http://www.mashable.com/2007/11/05/google-android/"Open Handset Alliance/a, in one way or another./p pBe that as it may, Hesse vowed to release an Android-equipped phone “some time in the future.” Which of course will happen. The company would be quite foolish to not pursue at least a few devices with the software installed. I imagine that future being one with most all carriers providing handsets featuring the major software options of the day. For example, T-Mobile will eventually support the a href="http://mashable.com/tag/iphone/"iPhone/a. It may take a few years, but there eventually comes a time where user demand gets its time in the sun. It’s unfortunate that it is taking this long to do, but such is the way of the corporate world. Consumer desires continually outpace the production schedules of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and other warehouses./p pThere are only two possible conclusions one can make from Hesse’s statement made before the NPC. The first is as I explained from the start: he’s bitter about not being first up to bat. The other: he’s borderline delusional and has managed to ignore all critical reviews of the now-public OS, which frequently regard the software as a serious second-place finisher to the thoroughly elegant and arguably more refined iPhone platform. Door #1, folks. Door #1./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/11/google-buying-sprint-nextel-doubtful/"Google Buying Sprint Nextel? Doubtful./aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/08/vonage-sprint/"Vonage Settles Patent Agreement with Sprint/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/29/google-sprint-nextel-wimax/"Google amp; Sprint-Nextel Partnering for Mobile WiMax Open Network/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/12/04/verizon-google-android/"Verizon Wireless to Support Google Android/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/08/28/google-phone/"Google Building Mobile OS/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/12/13/myspace-sprint-poll/"The Daily Poll: Do You Social Network on Your Mobile?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/17/sprint-loopt/"Sprint Nextel Offers Access to Social Networks and a GPS Community/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/danhesse.png" alt="" /

pYes, long live hackers. The good kind. The semi-sweet variety. All kinds./p pThe kind of hacker that makes plain the security concerns of the day. The kind that turns nonaggressive corporate behavior over technical worries into aggressive corporate behavior over technical worries. The kind that turns laziness at the executive level on its head. The kind that reveals to the public things despite the unspoken rule for silence prior to stubbornly absent fixes. They make this Web-enabled world a fantastically better place. Which I don’t think gets said anywhere near often enough./p pLong live the crafty ones. The brilliant ones. The ones who dig deep. And even the ones who don’t dig very deep at all, and resultantly make headlines for the very ease with which they traversed places where they were not welcome./p pThe gamut of examples runs long. Recent events have seen social network data compromised, as many of us have learned in months past. The renowned a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/10/16/brightkite-iphone-app/"iPhone/a was a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/06/25/jailbroken-iphone-apps/ "jailbroken/a, time and time again, to eventual launch of an application storefront that remains annoyingly totalitarian to many users. Suffice it to say that a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/06/12/qik-iphone-video-streaming/"jailbreaking continues/a. There was also that scandalous moment when vice presidential candidate a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/10/19/sarah-palin-snl/"Sarah Palin’s/a webmail account was accessed without its registrant’s approval. And let’s not forget that desktop and mobile browsers aplenty have been taken hostage too many times to even count. Thank goodness for it all./p pJust this week, a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/technology/internet/25phone.html?partner=rssnytamp;emc=rss" target="_blank"The New York Times/a reported that the Android-packing a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/09/23/google-g1/"T-Mobile G1/a was found to have its Web browser open to manipulation and taken to a malicious site. Google didn’t like having it spoken about before a fix could be made and delivered. But the public service announcement by Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators about the existence of a hole has been made. And I’m all for its propagation. Google says it’s any damage would be limited as a result of application “sandboxing.” That’s fine. To steal the phrase ever present on its front page, the news is still fit to print./p pHackers are not always wearing their white hats to work, of course. Sometimes their ballcaps are grey. Sometimes they’re black. And some do certainly wreak havoc on the world. Millions, even billions of dollars worth of damage./p pBut moral and ethical matters aside, the rainbow of actors that exist out in hackerdom have really done the techno-savvy - and even the non-tech-savvy among us - an invaluable service. Particularly those whose livelihood depends on pointing out the errors and bugs subsisting within popular and essential technologies. Speaking solely for myself (and here I temporarily shelve my intrigue for stories all but made for spy movies and thriller novels), and perhaps anyone else among you who wishes to do the same, I bid great thanks to the likes of a href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/26/how-to-make-a-dns-security-issue-worse-than-it-needs-to-be/"Dan Kaminsky/a and a href="http://mashable.com/tag/kevin-mitnick/"Kevin Mitnick/a for doing what they do, whether it is for fun or for play./p pSome among you might question how I could possibly put the words ‘fun,’ ‘hacking,’ ‘security,’ ‘popular,’ and ‘technology’ all into one piece. An appreciative piece, to boot. My answer to those responses is to say that if it weren’t for all this rogue activity, all this digital breaking and entering (without the breaking, of course, since it is insecure from the start), we’d be worse off. Quite a bit worse off, no doubt./p pNow, I will agree with anyone who feels that hackers, especially those who mean no harm to the public at large, put many innocent Web users at risk through some of their pre-fix disclosures. And out-and-out malicious agents who plot to steal PayPal funds from unsuspecting eBayers, or bank account data from other institutions in the banking sphere, should have to spend time in iron and steel cages for years on end. Because criminal they are./p pYet, to take a glass-half-full approach to these often disturbing situations, they’ve triggered a public education spree, which, while far from ever being thought “complete” or “over,” has effectively delivered a sort of Surgeon General’s Warning for the webmail-using masses. This is a great thing./p pSo, once more I feel compelled to say: long live hackers./p p(Image source: (top) a href="http://www.wackypackages2007.com/lost-wackys/ans3/Neil-Camera/Hacker-Jack.htm" target="_blank"WackyPackages2007/a; (middle) a href="http://www.impawards.com/1995/hackers_ver1.html" target="_blank"impawards/a)/p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/03/google-trends-malicious-hackers/"Google Trends - Malicious Hacker#8217;s Best Friend/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/06/livecom-email-addresses-live/"Free For All @live.com Today/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/03/pentagon-cyber-attack/"U.S. Pentagon Hacked by Chinese Military/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/08/07/netflix-hack/"Netflix Hack for DRM-Free Movie Downloads/aa href="http://mashable.com/2005/11/03/richard-mcmanus-livecom-has-nothing-on-netvibes/"Richard MacManus: Live.com has Nothing On Netvibes/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/02/wimbledon-free-mediazone-passes/"Free Weekend Passes to Watch Wimbledon Finals on MediaZone/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/12/23/google-talk-and-windows-live-messenger-9-get-friendly/"Google Talk And Windows Live Messenger 9 Get Friendly/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/hackerjack.jpg" alt="" /

pApart from making music that sounds good to a sizable audience, there are some essentials that can help bands become increasingly successful. One of them is consistency in live performance scheduling./p pIf you do things right, people will want you to play anywhere and everywhere humanly possible. But what if, as an independent act, you’re having a hard time filling your calendar and capitalizing on a burgeoning fan base as much and as often as possible? a href="http://www.skoggins.com/" target="_blank"Skoggins/a is a site that works to fill in those openings for musicians on tour./p pAs you might imagine, booking gigs can be done any number of ways. You can get yourself an agent or manager to do any timely bartering with venues, which is how it is usually done with many reasonable successful names in the industry. Alternatively, you could try to connect with people through social networking sites - as some artists do on a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/09/28/myspace-music-rant/"MySpace/a, a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/10/01/imeem-free-streaming-music/"etc./a - and have listener demand help to craft your regional or national route in order that you hit all the spots where a good turnout can be expected and can be financially viable to pursue./p pBut there are always those people who you might do well to connect with, but fail to pop up on one network’s radar or another. This is where Skoggins comes in./p pSkoggins isn’t for the average music fan to use in order to find bands they enjoy. It’s more a place that helps to bridge a gap that exists between musicians and event planners./p pThe event could really be anything. A night at a club, perhaps, or a spot at a festival, or even something fairly low-key like a college party or wedding reception. In that sense, the creators of Skoggins seem to prefer applying a label of “talent buyer.”/p pSkoggins naturally isn’t without company in its sector of the market. Sites like a href="http://www.gigleader.com/" target="_blank"Gigleader/a, a href="http://www.bandbookinggenius.com/" target="_blank"Band Booking Genius/a, and a href="http://www.splashtone.com" target="_blank"SplashTone/a all cater similar services. But Skoggins is noticeably more refined in its approach. A quick look at its front end and a search within a region of the country will reveal equal parts visual minimalism and plentiful information availability. Of course, the quality of its search experience depends entirely on the number and appeal of artists listed in the Skoggins database. But that too is a prerequisite for a successful run by any other likeminded service. Structurally, Skoggins is as useful as most any other to come before./p pIt’s features are straightforward enough. In addition to an artist page, you’re able to produce an interactive tour map, to be embedded most anyplace of your choosing. Also, options for a mailing list and press kit mailer are available, and both are free of charge. Again, it’s crucial that artist information be detailed and voluminous so as to make Skoggins into a thoroughly worthwhile visit for talent buyers across the American landscape. Yet it should be said that if it is to attract so many artists and event organizers to its doors, the formula being employed is solid start for sure./p pIt may feel a little plain, yes. But considering the competition, it seems as though it can hold its own in the wide world of performance art./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/05/16/mtracks/"mTracks Gets Funded, Launches Beta Site/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/28/tripit-launch/"TripIt Officially Launches with New Features/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/05/07/facebook-music/"Facebook Music?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/22/napster-att/"Napster to Offer Wireless Downloads on AT#038;T/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/12/total-music/"Music Industry Looks to Build Its Own iTunes Competitor/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/16/napster-update/"Napster Launches a New Web-Based Version of Subscription Service/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/29/worktopia-funded/"Worktopia Gets $5M for Virtual Office Space/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/skoggins.png" alt="" /

pIf you’ve had brothers or sisters or cousins older than yourself, there’s a reasonable chance that you’ve been the recipient of objects most frequently described as hand-me-downs./p pRarely would such an exchange elicit happy thoughts. Except for your parent or guardian, who saved some cash in the process, as well as the giver of said object, who could net some so-so karma for passing it along. (Major feel-good moments are had with Good Will donations and the like.) Well, there is now a service crafted to accommodate precisely this process. Fittingly, it’s name literally spells out a href="http://www.handmedowns.com/" target="_blank"Handmedowns.com/a. And quite frankly, it may actually be worth your while./p pAlternatives to the service can be somewhat treacherous to browse, after all. There of course is a href="http://www.mashable.com/2008/10/14/ebay-alternatives/"eBay/a, where the idea of second-hand shopping for years has taken on a life of its own, and from which many small businesses have formed. But besides the option to browse auctions and Buy-it-Now items, or, if you’re an adventurous individual, a journey through the immense classifieds warehouse that is Craigslist, your options are quite limited. Particularly if you wish to search specifically for children before they’ve even reached their pre-teen years./p pFor instance, a href="http://www.freebabyhandmedowns.com/" target="_blank"Freebabyhandmedowns.com/a is all but unusable. Swaphandmedowns has nothing to do with the concept we associate with the phrase. And a href="http://www.thehandmedowns.com/" target="_blank"Thehandmedowns.com/a I suspect has something to do with music. Apart from a logo, its front page is blank with no interactivity to speak of. So, on the whole, Handmedowns.com appears to be fairly unique./p pI for one would advise against the use of the website’s subtitle, “classifieds for moms,” simply to keep things as welcoming to mothers and fathers and whomever else need advertise their wear. But that is the card the public has been dealt, so we’ll take it for what it is: a place to buy, sell, give freely, or donate to charity anything to do with gear for young children./p pTechnically speaking, Handmedowns.com is fairly well engineered. It’s easy enough for most any user to understand, making one’s effort to browse a real walk in the park. Items are segmented as you’d want them to be, and the attachment of a discussion groups (so far void of activity, apart from a single safety recall mention) might be helpful to those who not only seek or post product information, but wish to talk about matters with fellow members./p pAs far as product listings go, you have one of three options, which I mentioned briefly in the lines above. Selling involves all entry points that the Give option will present users, albeit with an extra field for setting a price. The Donate button offers information about a Los Angeles-based charity called a href="http://www.baby2baby.org/" target="_blank"Baby2Baby/a./p pIt’s not certain that Handmedowns.com, currently in “beta,” will become immensely popular given the state of the American economy. Yet, just this weekend, a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/25garage.html?ref=us" target="_blank"The New York Times/a delivered a report on the increase in garage sales being conducted. Put two and two together, and you may well make a positive-leaning prediction as to the fate of Handmedowns.com./p pIt could take some time to truly hits its stride, seeing as it only caters to the cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. But the necessary foundation has been laid. If nothing else, its connections to engines like Craigslist, Kijiji, and Oodle definitely makes for a thorough roundup./p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/handmedowns.png" alt="" /

pAs was expected, coverage of a href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/24/electoral-projections/"election/a campaigning in the U.S. at this point in time has reached a frenzied pinnacle.  And we’ve a href="http://mashable.com/tag/politics/"paid a good share of attention/a to the race, as you may have gathered over the past several months./p pYet, there is now another event currently underway, albeit considerably less political, that is grabbing its fair bit of attention among the American populace. It goes by the name of baseball. a href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/22/world-series/"World Series baseball/a, at that. So we ask you: Which of the two grabs your eye more often these days? What does your Twitter feed look like with these moments vying for camera time?/p pYou might say there is no clear juxtaposition to make, no thinking that it’s one or the other. Perhaps some rhetoric recently dealt on election campaign over a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=189118amp;title=baseball-pandering" target="_blank"the candidates’ fleeting and wish-washy favoritism/a for the Phillies and Rays does go a little way in melding the two. But there’s still the matter of where you and those you follow in the growing social media space stand insofar as sports talk; either on the diamond where RBIs and home runs are on the order, or in and around Washington, D.C./p pPersonally, I see a near equal mix, at least since the MLB final was near secured. And as both teams continue battle in Philadelphia in Game 3 of the series tonight, talk of that business will presumably take the lead./p pSuffice it to say that Twitter is abuzz about both, however sandwiched they may consequently be. A simple Twitter search will prove as much. But who’s on base more? That’s a toughie, and can really only be your call. You might be free of jabber having to do with one newsmaker or the other. Or you might have your fill of each. Or neither. So tell us, what’s your inbox look like these days? And what gets your microbloggerly juices flowing?/p p a href ="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1041413/" Do you see/say more about the election or the World Series today?/a (a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com" surveys/a)/p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2008/06/03/20-tools-and-leagues-for-fantasy-baseball/"20+ Tools And Leagues For Fantasy Baseball/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/04/05/baseballnooz/"BaseballNooz Launches Social Network, Widgets and Startpage/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/12/28/politics-online-conference-discount/"Politics Online Conference 2008: Mashable Readers Save $50/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/22/world-series/"20+ Ways to Enjoy the World Series Online/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/27/joost-mlb/"Joost Announces Partnership with Major League Baseball/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/05/05/twitter-mobile/"Twitter Mobile Interface/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/04/21/twitter-fix/"Quick Fix For Twitter Troubles/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/electionsportstwitter.jpg" alt="" /

October 24

pa href="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/new-york-times.png"/aThe Grey Lady, as it#8217;s called, might possibly be in the winter of its lifetime. `According to a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/new-york-times-nyt-running-on-fumes" target="_blank"Henry Blodget#8217;s calculations/a, the New York Times is burning cash much quicker than it#8217;s making it, and this year might end up defaulting on their loans.  Their cash reserves sit at $46 million, and their gross income year over year is down by almost half. Additionally, according to SAI, the NY is #8220;funding operations by rolling over short-term loans#8211;the kind that banks worldwide are cancelling or making prohibitively expensive to save their own skins.#8221;/p pEven though New Media barkers like myself have been predicting the downfall of Heritage Media for some time now, the news is no doubt going to be shocking to the public at large.  /p pNot long ago, back in July or so, Duncan Riley a href="http://www.inquisitr.com/1917/television-will-fall/" target="_blank"wrote over at the Inquisitr/a that of all the failing Heritage Media formats, he saw the TV format hitting the crapper first. He wrote with a number of compelling reasons that I didn#8217;t necessarily see as invalid, but after considering all the various trends felt a href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/25/old-media-deathrace-5000/" target="_blank"the conclusion was in slight need of adjustment/a:/p pFor instance, newspaper decline is largely financial in nature.  Certainly, when you’re talking about business, that’s the most important factor to measure a media type’s life span. Is that what we’re really talking about here, though? The death of the media type or the changing of the guard in terms of the dominant companies behind them. In either event, newsprint and text delivery of news is increasingly being dominated by online blogs and news portals. Circulation may be technically up, but revenues for the companies that resist the transition to online delivery are a href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/25/old-media-deathrace-5000/www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/29182"most decidedly down/a./p pWise newspaper publications are managing some sort of a transition to an online revenue, but most companies that have their base in serialized news in the printed form still have problems adjusting to the new formats that we in the blogging business take for granted./p pDuncan is very positive that newspapers will always go the distance because of the need for quality journalism.  Unfortunately (at least for the newspaper industry) I don’t see this as a particularly convincing argument.  Quality journalism can and does take place outside of newsprint, and for a much greater profit. Some traditional text journalism outfits may realize this and make the transition.  Most won’t./p pI hafta say, when I was making the prognostication, I wasn#8217;t thinking specifically of the New York Times. After all, they#8217;ve made significant investments into technology, have recently made themselves a real presence and participant in the blogosphere./p pThe problem remains, though, that they have a very top-heavy editorial structure, and need to make strategic cutbacks that will allow them to maintain the same editorial output without so much overhead. a href="http://mashable.com/2008/09/08/the-digital-magazine-vs-the-digital-magazine/"We talked about this/a on one of the last Mashable Conversations episodes that Sean and I put out./p p  /p pAs we said in that episode: /p pThis is a year in which newsprint looks far more likely to collapse than we#8217;ve ever seen before. Meanwhile, top-tier blogs continue to prosper and find their niche as virtual magazines. Traditional media magazines seem to see the writing on the wall and are looking to meet New Media halfway. /p pI don#8217;t think that the New York Times is un-savable, but I think that the print edition and the print-based business model is dead. If you need proof that a transition can be made, simply look to the tons of online-only publications that well into the black (like the one you#8217;re now reading). /p p Clearly, the New York Times isn#8217;t hurting for online traffic, and they#8217;re a very monetizable brand. Very simply, they#8217;re going to need to look at ways of producing the same type of content for less money. This likely means some segregation of the publication from it#8217;s very top heavy corporate structure and a lot of their extraneous business units (like the Boston Red Sox) from the actual publication./p pOnce they#8217;re able to re-focus on what they think their core business is (being the world#8217;s publication of record), and doing it on time and under budget, they might be alright./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/16/new-york-times-free-content-increases-traffic/"New York Times#8217; Free Content is Paying Off/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/14/the-new-york-times-layoffs/"The New York Times Eliminating 100 Newsroom Jobs in #8216;08/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/08/07/new-york-times-sees-sense-paywall-comes-crashing-down/"New York Times Sees Sense: Paywall Comes Crashing Down/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/01/new-york-times-launches-techmeme-competitor/"New York Times Launches TechMeme Competitor/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/16/facebook-beacon-rss-feeds-new-york-times/"Facebook Sponsored Pages Add Feeds: NY Times Gets it First/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/17/timesselect-officially-free-and-other-nyt-stuff-too/"TimesSelect Officially Free (And Other NYT Stuff, Too)/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/01/06/nbc-new-york-times/"NBC Gets Around. Tango with the Times!/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/new-york-times.png" alt="" /

pThe a id="l_5w" title="Rails Rumble 2008" href="http://railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Rails Rumble 2008/a took place over the weekend of October 18th. The 48 hour Rails competition resulted in 137 Ruby-on-Rails-based applications, all taken from concept to execution in 48 hours. That#8217;s an impressive feat, and now you can go to the website, sign up, and vote for your favorites./p pIt#8217;s hard to pick from such a comprehensive list, but here are my thoughts on ten applications to watch out of all 137. Take a look at these, then go see the rest of the 137 and place your own vote while the voting is still open. You could influence the #8220;next big thing#8221; in Web 2.0./p pa id="vh" title="Forever Home" href="http://foreverhome.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Forever Home/a - This is not the first application to try and find lost animals homes, but it is the first to successfully find a few that are actually in my area and meet my qualifications. All you have to do is enter your location and the type of animal you#8217;d like to adopt, and Forever Home does the rest. This one could find success by tugging at the heart strings while keeping it simple./p pa id="r9nx" title="QFlip" href="http://qflip.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"QFlip/a - Bringing crowdsourcing to your NetFlix rentals. I#8217;d probably classify this as more of a feature than an application, as it allows you to put your NetFlix queue into the hands of the crowd. I#8217;d actually love to see this integrated with NetFlix as a feature, but for now you can give QFlip a try for free./p pa id="nf_g" title="MyConf" href="http://myconf.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"MyConf/a - This one has possibilities that intrigued me, especially if it could work in tandem with other tools like Upcoming or Eventbrite. MyConf bills itself as social conference management, and wants you to let the site plan your conference. It gives you a place to let conference-goers register, pay, and vote on speakers and topics. It even helps you get the word out./p pa id="k8xc" title="uBetcha!" href="http://ubetcha.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"uBetcha!/a - This fun application gives you a way to wager on real world events. It lets users win prizes for winning bets on everything from presidential debates to natural disasters. It makes watching the news fun again./p pa id="ys13" title="What Does This Error Mean?" href="http://whatdoesthiserrormean.com/" target="_blank"What Does This Error Mean?/a - Exactly what it says. This application takes the mystery out of those pesky computer errors. You post the bizarre error your computer is giving you and your connections tell you what it means./p pa id="dn9." title="Back In Black" href="http://diedebtdie.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Back In Black/a - Back In Black is designed to help you keep out of debt through budgeting and accountability. You not only set budgets and payments for yourself, you also add friends and family to the equation to nag and cajole you into keeping your commitments instead of hitting the mall for those Prada shoes or the latest gadget./p pa id="hjsf" title="Bid, Build, Bill" href="http://a8.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Bid, Build, Bill/a - Bid, Build, Bill is billing itself as a one stop project management solution for the solopreneur.  Designed for managing projects from proposal, through build stage to getting paid, it also includes a broadcast bar. This lets you microblog your status on the project while updating your time on each aspect of the job. Includes iPhone compatibility and invoicing./p pa id="nef-" title="Poolr" href="http://poolr.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Poolr/a - Making saving the planet a bit more social, Poolr lets you find people to carpool with. I#8217;d love to see this application take it a bit further by also including a way to budget for and plan the carpool expenses and timing./p pa id="cyjb" title="SoundFolder" href="http://kwyjibo.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"SoundFolder/a - This application is geared towards musicians trying to get their music out to their fans quickly and seamlessly. It is a simple music delivery system, which is one reason why I like it. Sites like this and Muxtape find success because of how easy they are to use.  All a musician has to do is load their music and stream it out - no ads, no social networks to track./p pa id="sis3" title="MeetInBetweenUs" href="http://meetinbetween.us/" target="_blank"MeetInBetween.Us/a - Solving a simple, but persistent problem, Meet In Between Us helps you find the halfway point between any two destinations. This is something I#8217;ve always wanted sites like MapQuest to do, as I have a lot of friends and business associates who live in other states I#8217;d like to meet half way./p pWith 137 applications to look at, I#8217;m quite sure I may have missed one of your favorites. There were several applications geared to developers that I think deserve notice, but not being a coder couldn#8217;t decide which ones would be most beneficial for people that do code. There were also a lot of food oriented applications. Apparently Rails developers are a hungry bunch. Of all of the food applications, I thought a id="cju." title="WantNom" href="http://wantnom.com/" target="_blank"WantNom/a had the most accessible interface and concept./p pAlso, there were a fair share of odd applications. One of these is a id="ja9e" title="Ostraka" href="http://ostraka.r08.railsrumble.com/" target="_blank"Ostraka/a, an application that lets you ostracize people you think are evil around the world. I am not sure if I like this one or not as it seems like it could breed negativity, and I think there is already plenty of that to go around these days. There were also applications for students, readers, note takers and more. Regardless of which you pick, all 137 are worthy of taking a look and placing your vote. If you have a favorite application you think I missed, let us know in the comments so we can check it out./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/05/fowa-contest-winners/"Future of Web Apps Miami Mini-Contest Winners/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/14/apps-for-democracy-win-prizes-for-innovative-mashups-utilizing-dc-government-data/"Apps for Democracy: Win Prizes for Innovative Mashups Utilizing DC Government Data/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/02/win-fowa-tickets/"Chance to Win 1 of 4 tickets to Future of Web Apps Miami/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/04/future-of-web-apps-miami-vote-for-4-people-to-win-tickets/"Future of Web Apps Miami - Vote for 4 People to Win Tickets/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/01/31/4-tickets-to-future-of-web-apps-miami-mini-contest/"4 Tickets to Future of Web Apps Miami Mini-Contest/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/23/paypal-facebook/"PayPal Searches for the $10,000 Facebook App/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/12/17/whereboutz-contest/"Contest Reminder: Win a Phone or Free GPS from Whereboutz!/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/rrninja-300x105.jpg" alt="" /

pCompany Name/p pa href="http://www.dailygrommet.com/" target="_blank"Daily Grommet/a/p p20-Word Description/p pDaily Grommet tells the story of one product discovery a day with video, original content, live comments, blogs and emails./p pCEO#8217;s Pitch/p pMany people are delighted to support independent or innovative companies with stylish, inventive, useful products. But who has the time to find them? That#8217;s what we do./p pDaily Grommet discovers one fresh product a day, and tells its true story. One blogger called us the anti-Amazon because #8220;rather than having everything for everyone with the consumer being responsible to find it, Daily Grommet has only one thing for you, as long as you dig what the Grommettes dig.#8221; Even bigger, we#8217;re taking all those conversations that happen among friends about the products they use and like, and we#8217;re organizing them into a powerful, social media-based word of mouth campaign./p pMashable#8217;s Take/p pPartially an ode to the Home Shopping Network or QVC, albeit styled in new media-esque proportions, and partially a play on the a href="http://www.mashable.com/2007/09/12/yahoos-deal-of-the-day-powered-by-woot/ "Woot/a philosophy of “one day, one deal,” Daily Grommet is a showcase of items shown individually, complete with video presentations, and a descriptive storyline of how the site’s reviewers came upon each product. Naturally, visitors are encouraged to post comments./p pLooking into Daily Grommet’s history, the venture is certainly very young. Only a handful of items are listed at present in the menu of ‘a href="http://www.dailygrommet.com/products" target="_blank"Past Grommets/a.’ But the idea put forth by its creators is as quaint and homely as it is enjoyable to observe. For the job undertaken, the site’s dimensions are perfectly crafted, really. Others perhaps try to professionalize too much. This project, meanwhile, seems to connote that time honored phrase of “keeping it real.” Take a look for yourself. You’ll see what I mean./p pOf course, there’s only one way Daily Grommet can really succeed in its pursuit. And that is to remain steadfast with its rollout. In the early days of the podcasting boom, the term daily was loosely used, and understandably so. Things were very rough cut and almost entirely unrehearsed and laden with defined schedules and the like. Now, the option to keep things casual doesn’t serve creators’ interests. No reason to jump to conclusions yet, though. All things being said, Daily Grommet is young, so we’ll just have to see where things go./p pAs far as its basis for existence is concerned, I think Daily Grommet holds considerable promise. While the product lineup to start the week isn’t my cup of tea, it is diverse enough to target a broad audience that doesn’t take to things like clearance priced flash drives and super cheap computer monitors. Today, for instance, the site features a a href="http://www.dailygrommet.com/products/4-Microplane-Zester-Grater" target="_blank"Microplane Zester/Grater/a. Rejoice, all you kitchen hounds!/p pWe’ll see what comes of Daily Grommet as the days go by. Suffice it to say that initial signs point to interesting times ahead for this one. Nothing’s guaranteed, but more often than not, sheer perseverance is what gets participants in the new media market to higher places with more potent exposure./p pEditor#8217;s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details a href="http://mashable.com/startup-review-sponsored-sun-startup-essentials/"here/a./p pSponsored By: a href="http://www.sun.com/emrkt/startupessentials/join.jsp"Sun Startup Essentials/aa href="http://www.sun.com/emrkt/startupessentials/join.jsp"/a/p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/24/the-daily-poll-google-apps-enterprise/"The Daily Poll: Google Apps Enterprise/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/30/instant-messaging-poll/"The Daily Poll: Are You Talking to Me?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/06/facebook-ads-poll/"The Daily Poll: Reactions to Facebook#8217;s Advertising Announcements/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/29/the-daily-poll-will-you-hulu/"The Daily Poll: Will You Hulu?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/04/22/demand-media-acquires-the-daily-plate/"Demand Media Acquires The Daily Plate/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/04/02/veronica-belmont-leaves-mahalo/"Veronica Belmont to Leave Mahalo Daily/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/05/19/sometimesdaily-mrc/"Amanda Congdon#8217;s New Show Gets Support from Media Rights Capital/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dailygrommet.png" alt="" /

pThe Guardian, one of the UK’s biggest newspapers, is breaking ranks with its dead tree counterparts and offering up its content in full-text RSS feeds. As the Google Reader team notes in its a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/10/reading-guardian-full-text-style.html"blog post/a about the move, The Guardian in turn becomes the first major newspaper in the world to do so. /p pTo-date, newspapers have only offered partial feeds primarily because there isn’t nearly as much money to be made in RSS advertising as there is in selling more conventional banner, text, and overlay ads on websites. With a partial feed that only offers a headline and brief summary, the thinking is that people will click thru to the website to read the article, and in turn, load those ads. /p pThe problem with this model is that very few people subscribe to partial feeds, because they offer little value. The Guardian is trying to turn this model upside down, and I think it could be successful, both as a user that wants to consume content in an RSS reader, and from a business perspective for the newspaper./p pFirst and foremost, The Guardian instantly gains an advantage on every other newspaper in the world, because their feeds are now way more useful than those of its competitors. And while RSS may still be fairly niche, The Guardian also positions itself to take advantage of the viralness that is now built into many RSS readers. For example, in Google Reader, when you “share” an item, it is broadcast to your Google contacts, on Friendfeed, and on dozens of other Web aggregators. /p pMost RSS readers also include the more mainstream concept of simply emailing a story to a friend – something one isn’t likely to do from within the reader when there is only a headline and short summary. While all of that sharing might not translate into immediate revenue for The Guardian, it does give their stories and brand greater exposure in a market that is currently being completely dominated by alternative sources like blogs, most of which offer full-text feeds. /p pThere are a couple caveats about The Guardians implementation of full-text feeds. As the company notes in a a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/insideguardian/2008/oct/22/full-fat-rss-feed-upgrade" target="_blank"blog post/a, images and cartoons won’t always be included, and content where publishing rights are uncertain (such as a story from one of the wire services) will be limited to excerpts in the feed. Fair enough. Nonetheless, The Guardian is taking a very progressive (and long overdue) step for old media. It will be interesting to see who follows suit. /p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/04/11/text-link-ads/"Text Link Ads Launches Post Level Blog Ads/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/09/facebook-news-feed-voting/"Would You Vote on a Facebook News Feed Item?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/05/30/adsense-for-rss/"AdSense for RSS Feeds Set to Launch Next Week/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/13/rss-brief/"RSSBrief Summarizes RSS Feeds/aa href="http://mashable.com/2006/05/19/xfruits-more-rss-geekery/"xFruits - More RSS Geekery/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/11/29/google-reader-adds-drag-and-drop/"Google Reader Adds Drag and Drop/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/05/07/google-reader-security-hole/"Potentially Serious Bug Discovered in Google Reader/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/rssicon.gif" alt="" /

pa href="http://www.box.net/" target="_blank"Box.net/a has released a new iPhone app that enables users to access their files stored on their Box.net account. The free basic account allows up to 1 GB of storage with a 25 MB file size limit and 10 GB of monthly traffic. This is good news for those wanting to access their documents and other files from their new 3G device with WiFi access. The app is available for free at the a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290853822amp;mt=8" target="_blank"App Store/a./p pIt#8217;s rather impressive that you can actually view your videos, photos, PDF files and Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents right from your Box.net account on your iPhone. You can also play music files that are stored on your account, so it#8217;s like expanding your 8 GB or 16 GB iPhone. I was able to play several tunes this way without any noticeable performance issues and this was strictly over 3G with no WiFi enabled./p pAlso, you can take photos from your iPhone and actually upload them to your Box account and share them with anyone you choose. You can share individual files or entire folders.  The other handy feature is the ability to upload your photos from the iPhone#8217;s Photo library or Camera Roll instead of using iTunes to sync with your local computer./p pEverything is in real-time so that means the app can monitor activity with your box.net account. Whenever someone has added a file or document to a shared folder on your account, you#8217;ll be able to see it instantly./p pThere are a slew of useless apps for the iPhone, but this is not one of them. Being able to store files from your mobile device to your online storage account is incredibly useful for business and pleasure. The ability to share files with iPhone users without needing to rely on email attachments (which can get blocked, delayed or lost) is another big benefit, especially for mobile users. /p pWe can fully expect other online storage providers to jump in the iPhone app fray very soon. a href="https://www.getdropbox.com/" target="_blank"MyDropBox/a and a href="http://mashable.com/2008/08/13/dropio-firefox/"Drop.io/a come to mind immediately. In the mean time, Box.net has gotten a jump start on the competition with a handy app that allows mobile users to access their storage space in the clouds./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/20/boxnet-iphone/"Box.net Extends Your iPhone Storage/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/25/boxnet-plugins/"Box.net Releases Microsoft amp; Adobe Plug-ins/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/29/iphone-no-att/"Outbound Call from iPhone Without AT#038;T/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/25/media-temple-iphone/"Reboot Your Media Temple Server from Your iPhone/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/05/01/boxnet-business-widget/"Box.net Announces a Business File-Sharing Widget/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/08/boxnet-collaboration/"Box.net Moves Further into Business 2.0 with Collaboration Tools/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/01/23/boxnet-funding/"Box.net Raises $6 Million to Take Online File Storage to the Enterprise/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/boxnet.bmp" alt="" /

pWhen the App Store was first a href="http://mashable.com/2008/07/10/iphone-app-store-is-live-so-whats-on-the-menu/"launched/a and the iPhone 3G was released, people like me were downloading, buying, and trying all sorts of new iPhone applications and writing about those that a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/7-iphone-apps-to-boost-your-productivity.html" target="_blank"seemed to be the most useful/a. It seemed like a whole new world of possibilities had opened up, and in many ways it had./p pBut many of the iPhone applications that looked like they were going to make life a lot easier fell by the wayside, increasingly unused, and eventually, off the phone altogether./p pI did a personal review of the apps I’m still using and those that I thought I’d use a lot but didn’t end up using much at all. Here are the apps that have stood the test of time:/p p1. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284417350#038;mt=8" target="_blank" target="_blank"Remote/a - As an Apple TV owner and an iTunes user, Apple’s own Remote application is probably the most used application on my entire phone. The small white remotes Apple ships with some of their devices are flimsy and prone to an eventual lack of responsiveness, but more than that, navigating and typing with it can be frustrating, especially if your iTunes Store password or Wi-Fi key is as long as mine./p pI use Remote several times a day, and it is only rivaled in constant use by those apps that shipped with the phone itself./p p2. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284967867#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Twinkle/a - I have been a a href="http://twitter.com/jfalconer" target="_blank"Twitter user/a for quite some time, and before I bought an iPhone I had no idea what people meant when they said the service was best enjoyed while mobile. Twinkle let me experience that and admittedly got me even further hooked, and while many original Twinkle users have said that better apps have come along and taken up its space on their home screen, I’ve stuck with it ever since. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”/p p3. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284962368#038;mt=8" target="_blank"GuitarToolkit/a - As a musician I’ve never owned a tuner that also allowed me to look up the whole gamut of chords and alternate tunings, and GuitarToolkit’s tuner is as accurate as you’ll ever need for bass or guitar. The metronome is also very useful and makes it easier to practice to a click—an oft-overlooked part of the practice session that will make your playing infinitely better./p p4. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284971781#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Things/a - I tried out OmniFocus for the iPhone for a while, but I soon after became a fan of Things for the desktop and tried Things for the iPhone. Its usefulness was seriously curtailed by the lack of any syncing mechanism for some time, so it lay dormant on my phone, but it became one of my favorite applications once sync was included./p pUnfortunately, I had to spend some time with an 802.11n-only network soon after, bringing to light one of the obvious flaws of this sync system. But as long as you’re running a mixed network as I am now, or a g/b only network, this is a fantastic application to keep your tasks with you wherever you go./p p5. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284934036#038;mt=8" target="_blank"BookShelf/a - Before the iPhone came out, I was a Windows Mobile user. Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through the trouble—it’s not easy being an OS X user with a Windows Mobile device—but I loved having a handheld device to read full-length books on with Mobipocket. I didn’t even have a data plan; it was a glorified phone and book reader./p pWhen I made the switch, one of the first apps that I looked for was a reader that could open Mobipocket files. BookShelf was the only one at the time, and though other cheaper options have since appeared, this app has served me well and I continue to use it./p p6. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290920045#038;mt=8" target="_blank"BOMRadar/a - Of little interest to anyone outside Australia is the BOMRadar application, an application that lets me track the severity of oncoming storms in the region using data straight from the Bureau of Meteorology website. This application has saved me from being stuck outside in the rain on two occasions now—that’s two replacement iPhones I didn’t have to order!/p p7. Light - I never got the fuss about these simple flashlight applications until I started using one. Erica Sadun’s Light app gets me from the home office to the bedroom every night without tripping over furniture. Definitely useful in my books. While this particular app was pulled from the App Store some time ago, there are plenty of alternatives available. Too many, perhaps./p p8. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=281796108#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Evernote/a - The popular notetaking application’s iPhone-based sibling is a constant aide to my memory. In all honesty, I don’t use it to take notes very often, but I do use it on a daily basis to refer to data I’ve stored in the app from a desktop or laptop computer./p pApps I thought I’d use, but don’t/p pFor every app I use, there’s a googol or two that I don’t, even if I thought they were going to make up part of my daily iPhone usage and make life easier./p p1. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284981670#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Mocha VNC/a - If I’m too lazy to get up and go check on my iMac from wherever I am, I use Screen Sharing on my Macbook Pro. It’s much easier and much faster than trying to use OS X remotely on a tiny iPhone screen, a system simply not designed for your fingers./p p2. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284881860#038;mt=8" target="_blank"NetNewsWire/a - I had some problems with getting NetNewsWire to sync my feeds properly, but the main reason I no longer use this app is that I became a Google Reader convert. There are no syncing oddities between computers (I used NNW’s desktop version on three Macs) and the interface is easy to use and doesn’t require installation when you’re hijacking someone’s computer./p p3. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284882215#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Facebook/a - I’m an infrequent Facebook user. I log in to accept a friend request or ignore the ridiculous number of app invitations I’m sent each day. I have no idea why I thought the iPhone would get me using Facebook more frequently, nor what the benefits in more frequent Facebook use actually are./p p4. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=285512415#038;mt=8" target="_blank"BeatMaker/a and a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=283853762#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Band/a - I have sequencers and digital audio workstations at home for making music, and Pianist (from the makers of Band) on the iPhone is a nice way to capture a melody and is way better than Band’s built-in keyboard. In the end, BeatMaker and Band were novelties I spent too much money on./p p5. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=285073074#038;mt=8" target="_blank"WordPress/a - I was excited to hear that WordPress released an iPhone application. I used it about three times. You can’t even moderate comments and I certainly don’t see myself writing posts on that keyboard; I only keep it on my iPhone in case I’m told of a typo while I’m out and about. That has not happened yet, so effectively, I don’t use the app./p p6. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=286274367#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Palringo/a - I suppose you could call this statement a hypocrisy since I use Twinkle on the iPhone, but I don’t know why one would want to use instant messaging on a phone. Talk about useless distractions when you’re grocery shopping./p p7. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=289943355#038;mt=8" target="_blank"AirSharing/a - AirSharing is actually a fairly useful app, but I’ve never so far found a reason to use it. I’m sure plenty of people use it daily, especially if you’ve got nothing more than a home desktop computer and an iPhone. But for someone with a Macbook Pro and several hard drives AirSharing doesn’t do a whole lot for me./p p8. a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284941327#038;mt=8" target="_blank"Simplify Media/a - Simplify Media streams your iTunes content to your iPhone in case you want to listen to a song you don’t have synced to it. While 16GB doesn’t even come close to fitting my iTunes library on it, the smart playlists that determine which music goes on my iPhone with each sync keep things well rotated, while providing me with all my favorites. I’ve never wanted to stream songs to my iPhone and that’s not just because I only have a 250MB data. /p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/16/iphone-nametag/"World#8217;s Simplest iPhone App/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/11/iphone-directory/"Apple#8217;s iPhone Directory is Really Real!/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/10/apple-iphone-directory/"Apple Making a Directory for iPhone Apps?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/26/iphone-europe-september/"iPhone. Europe. September./aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/06/29/google-reader-iphone/"Google Reader + iPhone = Awesome/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/08/iphone-apps-2/"8 Coolest iPhone Apps at iPhoneDevCamp/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/06/28/izoho/"iZoho - Office Apps for your iPhone/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/iphone.png" alt="" /

pFacebook has decided to a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=9445547199" target="_blank"share some details/a about its system architecture and make public the source code that powers it. In a note posted by one of the company’s engineers, Facebook describes how it went about choosing its technology stack and ultimately arrived at the decision to build its own server – called Scribe – to make sure Facebook could scale to hundreds of millions of users. /p pScribe is available as a a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribeserver/" target="_blank"project on SourceForge/a, where developers can track updates, request features, and submit bug reports. Facebook has a number of other open source projects in the works, including Facebook Open Platform, which offers up much of the Facebook code and enables other social networks – like a href="http://mashable.com/2008/10/02/port-facebook-apps-to-friendster/"Friendster/a – to let developers easily migrate their Facebook applications over. /p pUnlike other social networks like Friendster, MySpace, and Twitter – all of whom have run into serious scalability issues at different points during their growth - Facebook has been mostly reliable throughout its rise. So, if you have the bravado to think your Web app may someday handle “a few billion messages a day” (as Facebook says in their note), you may want to give Scribe a look. /p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/24/facebook-cfo/"Facebook Brings on New CFO: YouTube#8217;s Gideon Yu/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/09/18/facebook-javascript/"Facebook JavaScript Now Live/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/03/15/facebook-exporter-iphoto/"Facebook Exporter for iPhoto Launches/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/11/facebook-microsoft/"Stupid Rumor: Microsoft Buying Facebook for $6 Billion/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/30/facebook-rate-cards/"Facebook#8217;s Advertising Rate Cards Unveiled!/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/24/facebook-languages/"Facebook Planning More New Features (Not Microsoft Related!)/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/18/no-facebook-ipo/"Zuckerberg Refutes Facebook IPO Rumors/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/facebookoffice.gif" alt="" /

pSince launching a href="http://www.dadomatic.com" target="_blank"Dad-o-Matic/a, a blog where dads give views, reviews, news, and ideas about parenting, I#8217;ve been thinking a lot about how families interact with the Web. I look for applications and ideas that give parents some #8220;first steps#8221; into sharing experiences using online tools. Here are three Web applications I#8217;ve found recently that I find provide a fun way to build projects with kids. /p pa href="http://www.playspacefinder.com" target="_blank"KaBoom! PlaySpace Finder/a is a site where families can look for play spaces for their kids in their community. It features a Google Maps mashup, the ability to upload photos of the place, a comments section, and an amenities section to tell parents and kids what kinds of structures and toys they might expect upon arriving. /p pOne fun way to use the service is to take your kids on a #8220;mission#8221; to map out, photograph, list, and then review playgrounds in the area. It becomes a bit of a science/media making project, as well as a means of improving the quality of the content. If I were a href="http://www.kaboom.org" target="_blank"KaBOOM!/a, I#8217;d think about making an iPhone app for parents visiting other towns while on vacation, but that#8217;s just an expansion idea. /p pAs it stands, PlaySpace Finder is a useful tool that#8217;s simple to work with, and that makes for a better experience for parents to share with their kids. As the incentive is to find a cool place to play, it#8217;s okay that the site doesn#8217;t have purple dinosaurs and trains jiggling. /p pa href="http://www.tumblon.com" target="_blank"Tumblon/a is a site that helps parents chart their children#8217;s growth, while also preserving milestones and memories. Think of it as a a href="http://www.tumblr.com" target="_blank"Tumblr/a for kids. (Which, by the way, makes me think a lot of Greg Narain#8217;s a href="http://www.lilgrams.com" target="_blank"Lil #8216;Grams/a, but that#8217;s okay- it#8217;s nice to have options.) Tumblon has a slightly different model in mind, anyhow. /p pIn this case, the system plans to #8220;learn#8221; about your child through the different milestones you share. Based on this, they will recommend age and other demographic-appropriate products like books, so that parents might find resources to follow along with. Some people might find that a bit spooky, the potential #8220;advertise specifically to my kids#8217; demographics#8221; plan, but when I thought it over for myself, I#8217;d opt in, provided I knew that the data stayed on site. (I#8217;ve pinged the two founders of Tumblon, so I#8217;ll update this post when I find out)./p pThe killer app (as with everything that#8217;s happened on the Web in the last few years) is RSS. By being able to invite family members to subscribe to milestones, (and Tumblon does this VERY smartly by offering a subscribe-by-email so Grandma doesn#8217;t need to fire up Google Reader) the site encourages families to share milestones in a friendly and accessible way. Think of it as Baby#8217;s First a href="http;//www.friendfeed.com" target="_blank"FriendFeed/a. (Are you listening, a href="http://www.louisgray.com" target="_blank"Louis Gray/a?)/p pa href="http://www.scrapblog.com" target="_blank"Scrapblog/a is a site for building rich media scrapbooks online that can then be shared with family and friends. I found the design elements simple, the creation methods intuitive, and the options for distribution to be exceptional (although, now that I said a href="http://www.tumblon.com" target="_blank"Tumblon/a got it right with having RSS, I#8217;m wondering if I missed noting an RSS feature for scrapbloggers who share lots of creations?). /p pThe kinds of projects a family can make with this are obvious. Shoot your fall foliage walks. Record birthdays and weddings and other family gatherings in a more #8220;produced#8221; way. Build family projects like #8220;generations#8221; scrapblogs, where grandparents, parents, and children take both photos of themselves, and photos representative of their daily lives. /p pWith Scrapblog, the presentation elements are where it gets fun for families to create something. I might also recommend a href="http://www.animoto.com" target="_blank"Animoto/a as an alternative way to create fun presentation-like projects for kids. My six year old daughter enjoyed snapping a bunch of photos with Apple#8217;s Photo Booth app and then dumping them into Animoto. She felt like a rockstar (or rather, MORE like a rockstar). /p pIt#8217;s my belief that educating families on using the Web together is a great way to prepare for other interactions downstream. Building projects that get parents more comfortable with creating and sharing family media, especially if the products feel secure and non-threatening, is a way to share even more of the values of the social Web. Maybe we#8217;ll cover some other angle of this at Mashable, where we bring a new batch of kid-focused sites to your attention. Would that be useful? /p pChris Brogan is really proud of the work being produced by the nearly 50 authors over at a href="http://www.dadomatic.com" target="_blank"Dad-o-Matic/a. He keeps his own blog at a href="http://www.chrisbrogan.com" target="_blank"chrisbrogan.com/a./p p---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:a href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/29/goaupairs/"GoAuPairs Matches Travelers with Host Families/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/06/30/facebook-apps-igoogle-livepets-vuvox/"Facebook Apps: iGoogle, LivePets, Vuvox/aa href="http://mashable.com/2007/10/11/iphone-directory/"Apple#8217;s iPhone Directory is Really Real!/aa href="http://mashable.com/2005/09/22/desktop-web-apps-writely-api-on-the-way/"Desktop Web Apps: Writely API on the Way?/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/05/fowa-contest-winners/"Future of Web Apps Miami Mini-Contest Winners/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/01/31/4-tickets-to-future-of-web-apps-miami-mini-contest/"4 Tickets to Future of Web Apps Miami Mini-Contest/aa href="http://mashable.com/2008/02/04/future-of-web-apps-miami-vote-for-4-people-to-win-tickets/"Future of Web Apps Miami - Vote for 4 People to Win Tickets/a/p img src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/kaboom-screen.jpg" alt="" /