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Posts Tagged ‘Chunk’

Delicious Chrome Extension Early Beta Now Available

Bookmarking service Delicious has just rolled out a Google Chrome browser extension.

Like other Chrome extensions we love to play with, this one is lightweight, fast and useful. There’s no bulky sidebar here. Bookmarks can be created and saved with a miniscule “TAG” button and they can be searched from Chrome’s excellent omnibar. So, do you think this will prompt loyal Delicious users – many of whom had been holding out on Chrome in favor of Firefox – to switch to Google Chrome entirely?

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This is what the button and simple form for bookmarking a page look like:

<img src="http://www.family-learning-center.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/70483_1"

While this extension doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of some of Delicious’ other browser add-ons, the team noted that the public demand for a Chrome extension prompted them to release a beta earlier than they would have liked.

“It doesn’t have all the API’s needed and it’s missing a good chunk of the functionality we believe it needs, but we’re getting so many requests for the Chrome extension that we’re going to make this available sooner than we originally planned…

“As soon as Chrome is able to support the functionality needed we’ll ensure the features of this extension matches that of our other browser add-ons. There are still some interactions we’re not quite happy with that we’ll address shortly, but we wanted to give you an official Google Chrome extension as soon as possible.”

What do you think? Does the new Delicious extension make you want to use Chrome more? Or if you’re a Chrome fan, does this move give you a renewed interest in Delicious? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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The saga of the Apple stair comes to a $9950 end

Filed under: Retail

Ten days ago we reported that eBay seller heylookitskibbe was auctioning a stair from the staircase from the Fifth Avenue Apple retail store in New York. Shortly after our report, the stuff hit the fan.

Heylookitskibbe turned out to be former Apple employee, Mark Burstiner. The stair, made by Seele GmbH exclusively for Apple, was being replaced by Seele employees when Burstiner asked if he could have it. They gave the 250 pound stair to him, which he kept for a year before auctioning it. When Seele GmbH saw the news that the stair was on eBay they claimed ownership of the stair and demand that the auction be taken down and the stair returned to them. Burstiner removed the auction but refused to return the stair, claiming that it had become his property.

Yesterday we reported that, despite the legal threats, the auction was back on eBay. The auction has now come to an end with Burstiner raking in $9950 for little more than a chunk of glass thousands of people have walked on. The starting bid was $700 with a Buy It Now price of $2500.

TUAWThe saga of the Apple stair comes to a $9950 end originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010

Even though they don’t make retail devices, the booths of component makers like Qualcomm, Broadcom, TI, and Marvell at trade shows are often great venues for actually seeing retail devices — these guys have to help showgoers make the connection between a boring chunk of silicon and an end product if they’re hoping to score orders, after all. Indeed, Marvell’s tent at MWC this year is a veritable cornucopia of Good Things, and we couldn’t help but notice that they’re showing what appears to be one of Chumby’s not-for-sale reference designs sporting an 800 x 600 display with an 800MHz Marvell Armada core (hence the appearance here in the booth). For the record, we’re told this is a successor to last year’s reference platform known as “Silvermoon” that had been running on a 1GHz PXA168 and that there’s a chance it’ll be available in retail form later this year. The UI’s attractive, but not really as multi-functional as Sony’s Dash — you can think of this as more of a giant Chumby One, really, with some extra screen elements designed to take advantage of the significantly higher resolution. There’s no guarantee this’ll ever be produced — or if so, when — so for the time being, our video UI tour after the break is about as close as you’re going to get.

Continue reading Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010

Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hacking the iPhone App Store’s Ranking Algorithm

If you’re a mobile app developer, one of your biggest concerns is getting noticed. Companies like Smule and Tapulous already have recognized brands; however, for the independent app designer, the promotion process requires a fair amount of strategy. One proven method of increasing downloads is becoming listed as one of the App Store’s top selling services. We spoke to faberNovel’s Baptiste Benezet to find out how indie developers can hack the App Store ranking algorithm.

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Benezet explains that although Apple offers a variety of featured content within the web-based App Store interface, 80% of sales are made via the mobile ecosystem. While sales are driven by Apple editorial content, category browsing and rankings, because there are no opportunities to advertise in the mobile app store, it’s more important than ever to promote your app using the right marketing mix. The company collected data from the Regie Autonome Transports Parisiens (RATP) French commuter app to create a good formula for product, pricing, placement and promotion.

Product & Pricing: faberNovel found that a differentiated pricing strategy was a good way to earn revenue. While the company hit a few hiccups with its initial pricing of 1,59€, after cutting the premium service cost by 50% and building a phenomenal free experience, the new pricing strategy generated 3 times more sales. Says Benezet, “A good free version is crucial in pushing users towards the premium service, especially when the cost of the paid app is high.” In addition to monetizing via app sales, the company earned a good chunk of revenue through in-app advertising in the free version.

Promotion: Buying impressions on major websites was abysmal in drawing new users. From 500,000 impressions purchased on major French networks, the site was only able to generate 4 app sales. Benezet suggests that cross-application advertising is a better solution as relevant users are targeted via the devices they’ll use to download the new apps.

Place: Benezet argues that in the world of iPhone applications, size matters. Once the RATP application download was reduced below 10Mb, the company saw its largest sales peak ever as users were able to access the service via their 3G networks (rather than via the web-based App store). In addition to this consideration, Benezet’s most groundbreaking finding was in the App Store’s ranking algorithm. Explains Benezet, “The formula for App rankings only accounts for your last 4 days of sales.” The formula is 8 times the sales of the current day + 5 times the sales on the 2 proceeding days + 2 times the sales on initial date.

Benezet suggests that a promotional campaign of 4 consecutive days is more likely to pay off with a top ranking rather than a staggered date campaign. Furthermore, because app sales tend to increase by about 20% on Saturday and Sunday (even with a commuter app), it is most advantageous to be one of the top ranking category apps at the start of the weekend. As your sales increase over the weekend, your app’s daily ranking increases and the next four days revenue generation becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.

While the rankings remain relative to other application sales, faberNovel believes this model will help you increase the success of app downloads. After testing the theory, the company welcomes feedback to faberNovel.com.

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Study shows why over 30 percent of USA never uses ‘Net

Over a third of people in the United States do not access broadband at home, and nearly the same percentage “do not use the Internet anywhere,” according to a new survey released by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. That’s “not anywhere” as in not at home or work—no Facebook, no texting, no tweets, no e-mail, nothing. It’s a six percent drop from two years ago, but still a big chunk of America.

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feature: Collaboration 2.0? Twitter team-ups for fun and profit

Even if you’re a compulsive tweeter, you probably didn’t know what Twitter was a year ago. The 140-character broadcast machine has gone far beyond updating your friends about dinner plans, and, for those who use it, Twitter is slowly melding with the fabric of life and work. Turning the simple Twitter mechanism to creative uses has created a whole new toolkit, and I’m routintely surprised at some of the Twitter-based collaboration methods that users have come up with.

Of course, for many tweeters and former tweeters, Twitter is primarily yet another form of Internet-based distraction. “Twitter” and “productivity” are antonyms for a significant chunk of the service’s users. That’s why I set out to catalogue some of the productivity-enhancing, collaborative uses of Twitter. The survey below isn’t anywhere near exhaustive, which is why I hope you’ll drop into the comments section at the end of this article and fill in the gaps by sharing non-distracting Twitter uses with the Ars community. After all, if we’re going to keep a Twitter client open, we might as well get some work done with it.

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Locus OS concept video shows the future of computing… right now

While we’re sitting around complaining about the lack of innovative user interfaces and experiences in modern consumer electronics, a man named Barton Smith is actually doing something about it. In 2008 the industrial designer hatched a concept for an OS called Locus which completely upends many of the use paradigms we’re familiar with in current desktop or mobile operating environments. Besides looking absolutely beautiful, a major chunk of the Locus concept focuses around the idea of having separate, easily accessible workspaces for different settings, such as on a train, at home, while out with friends, etc. Each of those scenarios is stored in a set of “panels” which can change based on geolocation or by user choice, and has its own combination of desktop arrangement and application shortcuts. Locus also incorporates a Zune-like content browsing interface, and a project management UI based around real world interactions (something like BumpTop, but cleaner). The whole concept is slickly put together and well thought out… but it doesn’t just end with the software. Smith envisions this platform running on another concept of his: a portable computer called Stream. Stream would be a small, modular tablet / mobile device which can be docked in a variety of components, thus changing its functionality (along with Locus). It’s fascinating stuff, for sure, and doubly intriguing considering Barton began developing these concepts so long ago (though the video below is brand new). Now where is the super-rich partner this guy needs to make this thing a reality?

Continue reading Locus OS concept video shows the future of computing… right now

Locus OS concept video shows the future of computing… right now originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook Takes Over Its Own Display Advertising From Microsoft, Keeps Bing For Web Search

When it comes to display advertising on its own site, Facebook is taking full control of its inventory away from Microsoft. Even prior to Microsoft’s initial $240 million investment in Facebook in 2007, the two companies had an advertising partnership giving Microsoft the ability to serve display ads on the social network. That was a three-year deal which was up for renewal. The two companies just finished renegotiating it, and Microsoft will no longer be serving up display ads on Facebook.

However, Bing will still power Web search on Facebook and will serve up search ads. The relationship with Bing will actually be expanded to be global (before it was just U.S.) and to include smart answers and other guided search features within Facebook. Expect Facebook’s Web search to start looking a lot more like Bing. As far as social search goes, however, Facebook continues to develop its own search technologies which return realtime results from your personal stream.

Handing over a large chunk of its display advertising to Microsoft made sense three years ago, but now that Facebook generates more pageviews than Yahoo or Microsoft it doesn’t need to split ad revenues on its own site with anyone. Facebook is still trying to figure out what kind of advertising will work on a social site, but it has so much inventory that its revenues are believed to be growing quickly.

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