News portal

These days, we are deluged with data, and as a result we’re confusing noise with information, and information with useful information. But what many companies fail to realize is that what matters is what you do with that data — and as a result, they are missing out on a tremendous opportunity.

I finally understand why Spore has been delayed for so long. Originally expected for a 2007 release, the simulated evolution game from Electronic Arts (ERTS) studio Maxis was suddenly withheld, much to EA’s chagrin. Maxis head Will Wright explained the delay, saying that the company wanted to make the follow-up to its wildly successful […]

One of my colleagues in the office told me about a website statistics service named Woopra (he knows I love quantitative data). I had not heard about it prior, so I went a did a little research around the Internet about it. Apparently, it launched on/around May 30 2008, as it’s relatively new, but had a nice little writeup on TechCrunch. I did some Tweet tracking and saw that a healthy early adapter audience was using it.

What is Woopra you ask? Very simply: MyBlogLog meets Google Analytics and has a baby, and then morphs into a Bloomberg Terminal of the next century. Very, very interesting, at least to me it is. I’ve taken some screenshots of my Woopra Terminal and put them below for you to see:

What I like about Woopra is that it gives me information in near real-time and tells me where my audience is going and where they have been on my website. Generally, all of the data exists on server logs, but I like the advanced graphical representation of my data. In the screenshots above, you can see the ticker on the bottom of the page that scrolls with data from the server.

Woopra is going to run into some issues when large publishers start signing up. They are in beta right now which is very smart and limiting their service to publishers who are less than 10,000 page views. I’m speculating that the reason for this is because the amount of resources it takes to crunch all of the data is fairly intensive and that they want to work out all of the kinks before they start charing. I’m interested to learn how their infrastructure is built - are they using Amazon’s EC2?

What I’d like to see is Woopra share network data information.  Meaning, if I track a view on my site and rename them, I’d like to see that “renamed” person across the entire Woopra network.  There is a lot of information in the larger “network” - lets see if Woopra pools that data.

I also give them credit for the slick interface.

Darren Herman is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. Herman writes about technology, entrepreneurship and digital media at his blog, http://www.darrenherman.com.

Partner Links
– Manage your finances online with Geezeo
– Web Jobs
– CenterNetworks LinkedIn Business Group
– CenterNetworks Facebook Fan Page
– Check out SmugMug for a free trial

The new 3G iPhone is a game-changer, according to Ralph de la Vega, president & CEO of AT&T Mobility. Just hours after the heavily anticipated unveiling of the device, I chatted with de la Vega about the iPhone, its impact on location-based services, enterprise mobility and of course, the wireless web revolution that he believes it will unleash. Continue Reading

Mental note: Never fly United ever, ever again. Please cancel my United frequent flyer membership and flush all my miles down the proverbial toilet on one of your crappy planes.

We all know how bad off the airline industry is. They are limping along, or at best, trying to ‘reinvent’ themselves in to some kind of relevancy while slowly stripping us of benefits and things that were once standard wherever you flew. Now you pay for your luggage, you only get a granola bar for your $1200 first class seat and even going to the bathroom can be met with hostility. Now Delta in-flight engineers claim it is a security risk for coach passengers to use the first class bathroom. When called on their completely false logic, they then went on to say that all first class passengers have been pre-screened and we know more about them given their proximity to the cabin. Wow, even that guy you just upgraded? Touché. Do you think I am stupid?

The worst though was my wife’s recent trip to London. She flew United for the domestic leg to Dulles where she then took Virgin Atlantic across the pond. Her flight from DAY to IDA was delayed due to bad weather for over an hour. However, she was able to make her connection at Dulles in time. When she got to London, was her luggage there? Nope. With no helpful information coming from either carrier, she turned to me back in the States to try to help. I drove out to DAY and lo and behold what did I find at the United baggage office? Her luggage. Still_in_Dayton. Two days in London with no clothes or toiletries. Nice.

I went to the airport to pick her up a week later and guess what? You guessed it! They left her luggage behind at IAD *again.* She took it off of the Virgin Atlantic flight, brought it through customs and then re-checked it. On top of all of that , her flight to DAY was again, to no one’s surprise, delayed by two hours. So how does the baggage get left behind again?

My wife was understandably nuts at this point. Greeted by the United baggage rep with the same “we know nothing we will call you at some point when we find it” non-answer she was even more upset. At this point, the United rep responds “Ma’am, if you don’t calm down I am going to re-route your baggage to Beijing.” Nice. I finally resorted to working through the United 1-800 number for lost baggage and implored them to get it on the 10pm flight to DAY from IAD. That flight, was of course, delayed as well. To me, this means even more opportunity to get the baggage on there. Through the whole thing United wouldn’t confirm anything. We can call in the morning and ask them to get it on the first flight. Why cant you call them *now* and ask them to get it on the 10pm flight? Our computers only send messages to each other every four hours. Wow. They certainly aren’t spending money on computer upgrades.

I called back every hour through the night and was finally told the baggage ‘most likely’ was on the 10pm flight which was delayed to almost midnight. I picked up the baggage at the DAY airport at 1:50am.

“I hope your wife has calmed down by now” the agent from earlier told me. I am sure she has now that you didn’t route her baggage to Beijing.

Here’s a fun gadget to brighten up your mornings, the LED shower light.

The LED Shower Light is a brilliant idea. It installs to a standard shower pipe in mere minutes. When you turn the shower on, the water powers a turbine and the LED Shower Light…well, lights up! Blue let’s you know the water is […]

Well, at the recommendation of one of the presenters at the Day of Dot Net in Grand Rapids, I bought up C# In-Depth and started reading… and reading…. and reading.

Now going to bed: need some rest before another day of freelance study.

Our growing ability to use the Internet as a giant database, apply that information in a creative way to build interesting mash-up applications, and then apply them to markets — stock, real estate or fantasy — is an area that holds a lot of fascination for me. But while a few efforts have produced rudimentary, […]

Everyone is streaming in trying to find the optimal seat. After four hours of waiting in line, I don’t care where I sit just as long as I am sitting. There are large plasmas all over the place which is good – from my vantage point, Jobs is going to be a dot. Huge applause – Al Gore is here in the audience. From my seat:

More cheesy pre-show music …

10:01 AM PST

Still waiting, people still streaming in. Whomever was in charge of the herd\logistics should be shot. Microsoft owns them in this regard – the all important conference logistics and organization!

10:05 AM PST

Still waiting – oh no, here we go – lights are down!! Applause. NDA on screen, all rights reserved, etc. Showtime!

Steve comes on stage to rabid and thunderous applause.

Record 5200 attendees. Sold out. Biggest venue we can find.

We have planned a lot of stuff to show you today.

Three parts to Apple: Mac, Music + iTunes, iPhone

Bringing up head of iPhone departments and product marketing

After lunch we get a peak at Snow Leopard!

iPhone

25K applied to paid developer program
iPhone 2.0

Enterprise Support

SDK

New User Features

Enterprise Support

Push email

OTA config

Certs

Remote wipe

Cisco VPN

Beta program – 35% of Fortune 500 participated

Showing video of customers like Disney that were in the beta

Customer testimonials from the beta program. Disney, The Army, Security companies, etc.

  Now the SDK

Opening uo the same API and tools they use internally to developers

Coca Touch – Media – Core Services – Core OS

Line for line same source code as Mac OS X

New feature called core location allows for location based services

Core Audio – open GL es and surround sound

Coca touch – OOF and UI optimized for full screen touch interface, makes building it a breeze

X Code will be used to write edit and debug

Interface builder lets you construct the user interface and then insert in code

iPhone emulator to debug and test

Instruments allows you to test, benchmark and appropriately size your apps.

SDK Demo with Interface builder

Interface builder interacts with X Code and knows about each other. Then compile in X Code and complete. Test in the simulator. Plug an iPhone in to the computer and you can then test on that iPhone. Signs it automatically, loads it on the iPhone and you can test. Debugger loads automatically. Looks at the location with location based services and can sort data based on that.

More developer demos.

Sega gets big round of applause for having Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone. In three months all development was complete. Game will launch with app store for $10

eBay – auctions on iPhone – watch lists and custom searches give updates in real time. Find out when you get out bid and when things you are tracking go on sale. Filmstrip allows you view all photos associated with sale. Will go live with the app store.

Loopt – location with a social network. Using location based services, you can see your friends on the map and see where they are. You can also share photos, comments and emails about\with where you are. Communicate with friends and get directions to where they are. Never eat lunch alone again. Free when the app store launches.

TypePad – post to their blogging platform natively from the iPhone. Blog the moment. Send photos straight to blog. Select photos from the photo album, scale and add. Add blog comments, choose blog, keywords, tags, etc. Then publish straight to blog. You can also view via Safari to check final product. Free at launch of app store.

Associated Press – mobile news network, read news streams, watch video, email stories to friends, you can also report the news you see from the iPhone (hmmmm – wonder how that will work out). Completed entire app in 5 weeks. Free from app store at launch.

More demos, more demos, I will be back after all the demos . . . .

MLB.com has media minutes on the iPhone after it happens. Near realtime streaming video.

And, a developer from an insurance agency developed an awesome band\musical application that allows you to make music on your iPhone.

Modality made an iPhone based app for medical students to learn all the parts of the body on in stunning detail with annotations and definitions. Quiz mode, etc. Brilliant.

MIMvista medical imaging software – medical imaging is a lot of data and a lot of action. They are showing slices of a fusion study from a CAT scan and metabolism from a PET scan at the same time in composite mode like a weather map. You can even self-mix it and they had a prototype in 3 weeks and a working model soon there after. It looks amazing and the detail is phenomenal. You can mark up all the images and make measurements, etc on screen. When you want to erase them you just shake the phone like an Etch-a-Sketch!!

Digital Legends has only been working on this for two weeks with the SDK. Demo of a game called Krull which looked absolutely amazing with full OpenGL 3D graphics. Available in Sept.

Demos over. Phew. Lets here the news!!!

Developers want notifications on actions even when the user is not running the app. IM and eBay alerts even when not running the app. They dont want to do this using background running apps. Drains battery and hinders performance. Just slammed WM6 using its task manager to kill background processes, like a “game or challenge” to keep your phone running well. Push notifications service will be used instead.

You can push badges to show how many unread emails you have, you can push sounds and you can push text alerts with actionable buttons. It scales. Works OTA on both WiFi and cellular networks.

Thats it for SDK updates.

Few more features:

contact search

Full iWork document support

Full Office document support

Bulk delete and move for email

Save images from email right to photo library

Scientific calculator

Parental controls

Languages – Asian, 2 Japanese, 2 Chinese, they can draw the symbols with their fingers if they want. Switch on the fly.

Comes out in Early July – free for all iPhone owners. $10 for iPod touch owners.

App store – opens in July when iPhone 2.0 comes out. Developers set price of app. Keep 70% of revenue. Can also give them away for free. No credit card or hosting fees.

Now going to be in 62 countries. If 10MB or less they can download over any network. If larger than WiFi or iTunes.

Enterprise app store, their apps only on their phones only. Distribute them on their own intranet. Users download them and sync to their phone via iTunes.

Ad Hoc is a third way to distribute apps. Ad Hoc distribution for up to 100 iPhones. User download and sync them on to their phones via iTunes.

MobileMe (the new .Mac)

Called “Exchange for the rest of us.” Better than activeStink. (sic). Now you can push email, contacts and calendars right to your mobile device. You can use Mac, PC or iPhone. Everything is stored in the cloud. When you get a message it is immediately pushed to all of your devices. Change a contact, make an appt. Get an email. OTA it is all kept up to date.

Can also be accessed via a web browser. Very nice interface. http://me.com

Sync photos as well. Documents and content too with iDisk. Cost? Log out when done with that computer if a public computer. Live demo took 4 seconds to sync changes across Mac, PC and iPhone.

$99 a year with 20GB storage for all contact. 60 day free trial. Comes out with iPhone 2.0 in July. Mobile.me replaces .mac – will get automatically upgraded.

Battery running low – will go on as long as I can.

iPhone first birthday on 6/29.

“The phone that has changed phones forever” & “Users love their iPhones.” 97% customer satisfaction. 98% mobile browsing. 94% email 80% are using 10 or more features.

6M iPhones and then ran out about 4 weeks ago.

Next challenges: 3G, Enterprise support, 3rd party app support, sell in more countries, more affordable!!!!

iPhone 3G!!!

• 3G
• Thinner
• Full plastic back
• Metal buttons
• 3.5 inch display
• Camera
• Flush headphone jack
• improved audio
• Feels better in your hand

3G for faster data downloads. Need for browser and email.

Test website 21 secs for 3G and 59 secs on edge

Great Battey life – 300 hours standby time – 3G talk time – 5 hours – industry leading – browsing 5-6 hours, video 7 hours, audio – 24 hours

GPS included in the new phone!!

Location-based services will rule. Location data from cell towers, wifi and GPS.

Full Exchange and Cisco support.

To the tune of “Its a Small World” the map gets populated to show it will be selling in 70 countries.

Moving on to “more affordable” - $599 for a 8GB, now $399 – will now go for $199 for an 8GB phone!!!

Goes on sale 7/11

The growth is tremendous and there are quite some reasons for it: the lack of competition from other large vendors, the Microsoft direct and indirect sales force, the Microsoft Office integration and of course the organic growth strategy used for that product which makes it a perfect out of the box solution.