Wednesday, October 04, 2006

If sprint was crazy before, they are definitely KRZY now!

The Motorola Krzr K1m. This Razr variant phone will now be available from Sprint with full access to sprints video and music services including Sprint TV, Sprint Power View, Sprint Movies, and the Sprint Music store. Spirnt was so crazy about the Krzr they have announced it before fixing a price point. That is one carrier that obviously could'nt wait to announce a Razr variant, then again, knowing cellphone carriers, the news would probably have leaked out anway, considering that on the CNET Buzz Out Loud podcast motorala announced they would have "planned leaks". Not even Microsoft would announce a leak!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Patches for Patches

Today Microsoft has released an Internet Explorer patch for a previous patch! The previous patch crashed Internet Explorer. You know, i heard of another patch for Internet Explorer, Its Open Source, you can customise without installing hard to remove toolbars, what was it called again..........oh yeah: FIREFOX!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Leo Laporte Found On Cnet Download.com!?!

I often use download.com as a place for "safe" downloads of free, or "free to try" software, but when i loaded download.com up this morning i did not expect Leo Laportes "Cartoon face" (of the acclaimed podcast Twit.tv) to be half looking back at me! Incase this strange and inexplicable web bug has dissappeared by the time you see this post (which it probably will have) i took a screen grab and cropped it down to the relevant part. A truly strange and rather baffling thing has happened to download.com, was it a CNET employee who is a TWiT fan or has Download.com been Hacked?!

Disclaimer: Download.com, Cnet and their affiliates, subsidarys and business partners are copyrighted and trademarks of their respective owners.

Friday, August 18, 2006

The Meaning of Web 2.0 (In one word!)

After some deliberation between the time i started this blog and my previous post, i think the meaning, or at least one word to sum it all up, of web 2.0 has been found. The word is (drum roll please)....Social! Think about it, when you tag a photo on Flickr, you make a social gesture by being kind enough to tag it, making it easy for the community to find. Most websites involved with the web 2.0 boom have incorporated social networking features. Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. Blogging, podcasting, and other forms of new media are social activities. Placing cool animations and logos on your site make it pleasing to the eye, better for the community to see, and there is no denying that the community is a social entity. Making software Open Source (which has been around before web 2.0 but has grown during web 2.0 significantly) and making API's public to allow mashups is a social activity as the community embraces these two things. Digg.com has been described by Kevin Rose, its creator, as a social news site. There you have it, the meaning, or at least one word to sum it up, of web 2.0 is social.

Please comment on this post, comments only make the blog a better website. Also, nobody is using our social mail address. The address is
betaisthenewblackideas@biggu.com. Email to it for YOUR ideas to appear in those feed: http://social-mail.com/feed/betaisthenewblackideas/. Its there for you, the community, go grab it!

FREW WIFI! (if youre house happens to be conveniently placed in Mountain view, California)

Google has rolled outs its free wifi service in Mountain view, California. The system is secure (very cool) because you have to download a google client (not so cool) to connect to the network. Google's service offers 300kb/s (nice) but is ad subsidised (there's no such thing as a free lunch). The service is to be rolled out over the whole of San Francisco, as well as a pay to use Earthlink service. But do you want Google to know what you surf for, download, upload etc. At least for me: No thanks! Also, where are the comments! Please comment on the articles! Feedback will only make the blog better. Please also use the "Social Mail" address for ideas! This blog is powered by the wisdom of the crowd but if there isn't any wisdom coming from the crowd then what am i to do for good posts. Mosts of the posts you see here are posts written after stories have been recommended to me by the Interweb community

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Social mail is here!

On my last post I promised that those of you kind enough to take the time to read this blog would soon be able to email ideas to beta is the new black to an RSS feed. I also told you that it was called Social mail Today that feature Launches! Send your ideas for new posts on beta is the new black to betaisthenewblackideas@biggu.com and they will appear in an rss feed! The feed is: http://social-mail.com/feed/betaisthenewblackideas/

Think of it as the "Beta is the new black think tank" but its powered by the wisdom of the crowd. Also, for those of you who comment on the comments section and post ideas to the feed, you may be given access to the new beta is the new black vip social mail lounge. So participate, comment, post ideas and most of all enjoy it!

Monday, August 14, 2006

Yahoo takes a mighty slurp at the web!

Yahoo's search bot "Yahoo Slurp" is apparently going on a web rampage. The Yahoo Bot functions as a "crawler" (but by the looks of it they should change that to "web Stomper") as its activity on indexing web pages dramatically picks up. Leo Laporte of TWiT.tv has said on the Latest Edition of TWiT (TWiT 66: A little dab'll do ya) that Yahoo Slurp pounded over 100 megs out of TWit.tv! Is Yahoo preparing to release a "google killer". Did buying bandwith junkie Flickr teach the company a lesson, or maybe it was just angry shareholders (you would be surprised how many descisions are made in the Tech Industry due to angry share holders "The Growth is not sufficient!"). Hmmm... Yahoo takes on Google, Yahoo defeats Google, Google fades into pitiful existence? NEVER! The probability that Yahoo defeats Google is probably less than the probability that 42 is the meaning of Life The Universe and everything! (see "the hitchikers guide to the galaxy")

Coming soon on Beta is the New Black: A new email address that when you email to it, your email will appear on an RSS feed. It's called "Social Mail" and its provided by the folks at "Big in Japan". They made "the web 2.0 toolkit". Go check it out!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

South Kore builds the new myspace?

A new social networking site (originating from South Korea) has launched its Beta in the US. Cyworld will tour the US this month to show how Cyworld appeals to the demographic of people age 18 to 29 to create "min-homes" on the web. More than 90% of this demographic in South Korea have a page on Cyworld. The site has 2 million users in China. Perhaps one of the most clever things about Cyworld is that the site does not try to detract users use from using their "helper" services, Cyworld encourages you to use this service and bring them together on your Cyworld page. This not only brands Cyworld as "friendly" but puts Cyworld in a good light with "helper" web services. Does this mean that social netorking giant myspace will no longer be "myspace" and "yourspace" but will become "nobody'sspace". As always you decide! Choose the service you want.