5 reasons Myspace is making a comeback

 Internet News  133 Responses »
Aug 062012
 

Earlier this year, the Myspace team proudly announced that it had signed up 1 million new users in the span of a month. Monthly traffic was rising — and it still is. “For the past few years, it’s always been ‘My-who?’ when anyone mentions the former social networking giant,” says Steve Knapp, director of brand activation at Carmichael Lynch. As an advertising executive, Knapp has pioneered programs in social media for companies such as Nike, General Mills, and Northwestern Mutual.

“Marketers tend to forget over 29 million people visited Myspace last month,” Knapp says. “That’s more than Pinterest, Tumblr, or Spotify. What’s more, most people already know the brand. Myspace was likely was the first social experience where you connected with friends, discovered new bands, or maybe even ‘friended’ brands. Now armed with a massive catalog of free music, people and marketers alike need to understand the reasons to come back. I’m not sure what it is yet, but there is scale and focus. Maybe if Justin Timberlake starts making sales calls, more brands will take notice.”

So while the general public continues to laugh and make snide comments about MySpace, more and more media and advertising executives are beginning to take notice. Now more than ever before, there seems to be rather strong evidence that it’s time to get serious about Myspace yet again — and here’s why.

MORE:  5 reasons Myspace is making a comeback (single page view) – iMediaConnection.com.

 

Safari For Windows is Abandoned By Apple, Leaving Users Vulnerable With No Warning

 interface, Internet News  49 Responses »
Aug 062012
 

Apple has removed any reference to Safari for Windows from its website, and is more or less acting like it never happened.

Safari for Windows made its way onto millions of PC’s using the iTunes auto update system, and you’d be hard pressed to find a single fan among those they duped into downloading it. As a WebKit equipped browser it wasn’t the worst option for Windows users at the time, but it also didn’t offer any distinct advantages. Today Safari 5 users on Windows are stuck using an outdated browser, and naturally, aren’t warned that they are vulnerable to at least 121 unpatched flaws. According to Apple’s own documentation these flaws can expose users to attack by malicious code execution, and are quite serious in nature.

MORE:  Maximum PC | Safari For Windows is Abandoned By Apple, Leaving Users Vulnerable With No Warning.

 

New Tool Eliminates Ugly Craigslist Ads

 Internet News, Web Design  1,172 Responses »
Aug 052012
 

A San Francisco-based team has developed “Beautiful Craigslist Ads,” a free online wizard that makes each post simple and sleek, it says. The classified ad website is notorious for its bare-bones layout and few formatting options.

Users fill in information, such as details about rent, neighborhood and lease term, which the tool then organizes in an optimal way, according to its Kickstarter page.

MORE:  New Tool Eliminates Ugly Craigslist Ads.

 

MPAA “embedding is infringement” theory rejected by court

 Internet News, Law  404 Responses »
Aug 052012
 

A federal appeals court has decisively rejected a legal theory that would have placed anyone who embeds a third-party video on her website in legal jeopardy. In a Thursday decision, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “video bookmarking” site myVidster was not liable to the gay porn producer Flava Works if users embedded copies of Flava videos on myVidster.

Judge Posner’s reasoning is interesting. He argues that when you view an infringing video on a site such as YouTube, no one—not you, not YouTube, and not the guy who uploaded the infringing video—is violating copyright’s reproduction or distribution rights. And since simply viewing an infringing copy of a video isn’t copyright infringement, he says, myVidster can’t be secondarily liable for that infringement.

Viewing an infringing video online may lead to a violation of copyright’s public performance right, Posner goes on, but here the law is murky. The judge called on Congress to help clarify exactly how copyright law should apply in the age of Internet video.

And if even one of copyright’s most respected jurists is confused, it’s a clear sign that copyright law needs work.

Embedding is not infringement

Flava Works sued myVidster because users kept adding links to Flava videos to the myVidster site. myVidster is a “video bookmarking” site that automatically embeds bookmarked videos on its site and surrounds them with ads. To the untrained eye, it looks like myVidster itself serves up the infringing copies of the videos. Based on that perception, the trial court judge ruled that myVister was directly infringing Flava’s copyrights and granted a preliminary injunction.

Of course, if embedding is direct infringement, then anyone who embeds a video without first researching its copyright status is at risk of being a direct infringer. That would put a damper on the practice of embedding, which has made the Web a more convenient and interactive place.

The Motion Picture Association of America, of course, was thrilled with this initial result. But as Google and Facebook pointed out in an amicus brief late last year, the lower court’s decision was inconsistent with the relevant precedents.

MORE:  MPAA “embedding is infringement” theory rejected by court | Ars Technica.

 

How to defeat your enemies on the Internet

 Internet News  266 Responses »
Aug 052012
 

So what do you do if someone is being mean to you online? Cry? Sit there and take it? No. You survive. You prevail. Here’s how to beat the bullies.

Take threats seriously

Look, if someone threatens you with physical harm via the Internet, go to the police. No matter what. No exceptions.

But if things are less severe …

Take it offline

If your friend is being a jerk on the Internet, try to hash it out off the Internet. As magical as it is, the Web just isn’t a good way to express sincerity. Odds are, you two will misunderstand each other online and exacerbate your spat. Just bury the hatchet face to face.

Tattle on them

It’s easy to talk smack online. And it’s just as easy to whine to the authorities about it. There is shame in telling on people in kindergarten, or in the mafia. But not online. Snitching is just a tool in your belt, not a sign of weakness.

Twitter doesn’t have a formal policy against being mean. But actual threats, privacy invasion, and spamming are all verboten — as are “abusive” tweets, which is a little nebulous. If you think you’re being abused, not just in the midst of an argument, report the infringing messages here. If Twitter agrees with you, your antagonist will either be warned or suspended.

The same goes for Facebook: Every post can be reported directly to Zuckerberg’s Internet police — and luckily for you, victim, Facebook is much stricter than Twitter. On paper, at least.

MORE:  How to defeat your enemies on the Internet – Technolog on NBCNews.com.

 

10 steps to get designs signed off and keep your client happy

 Design, Web Design  318 Responses »
Aug 032012
 

Joey Rabbitt, a web designer and frontend developer currently working for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, shares some techniques to keep the client sign-off process smooth

I’ve worked as an in-house designer, a freelancer, and in a creative studio. The role of the client can change depending on the job, but the sign-off process is always the same. After you’ve dedicated your time and creative energy to a project, it can be demoralising if the client doesn’t like it in the way that you hoped. On top of a deflated ego, redrafting your work can cost time and money. I’d like to share some of the techniques I’ve learnt to keep the process as efficient as possible.

MORE: 10 steps to get designs signed off and keep your client happy

 

New tools for web design and development: July 2012

 Internet News, Tech News, Web Design  286 Responses »
Aug 032012
 

This month, Mark Penfold’s round-up of the best new tools ranges from cutting-edge experiments to down-to-earth utilities. Give them a try: they’re all free

This month sees a mix of the boundary-pushing and the practical. The two aren’t such strange bedfellows as they might appear, at least when it comes to web development – for the simple reason that just about any attempt to stretch the realms of the possible will cause a few holes to appear in what you’ve got. And that’s where the practicalities come in.

So we’ve got a 3D CSS3 lighting rig and a PNG image cruncher, a media production suite and a cookie cutter for jQuery. You can’t afford to lose sight of the details when you’re trying to make changes to the big picture.

What’s more, many of the dev community’s brightest stars are associated with detail work. Take, for example, the Modernizr project, also updated this month. When it actually comes to building the web, it isn’t content that is king: it’s utility.

MORE:  New tools for web design and development: July 2012 

 

Reborn Digg Starts Over From Scratch

 Internet News, Web Design  204 Responses »
Aug 032012
 

Digg is back. The social news site that coulda been a contender — or actually was a contender for a while — has risen from the ashes of its recent sale to Betaworks.

The current version is not, however, the Digg of old.

Not only has the site been completely rewritten from the ground up, but it’s far from complete. In fact, as the announcement notes, the site was rewritten in a mere six weeks. That’s impressively fast, but it has definitely left some rough edges on the initial release.

Today’s release is best thought of as a work in progress — it’s still buggy and feature incomplete — but it does give a glimpse of Digg’s future. This time around Digg is more visually focused — think one part Pinterest, one part Flipboard.

MORE:  Reborn Digg Starts Over From Scratch | Webmonkey | Wired.com.

 

US homes drop pay-TV as DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner lose subscribers

 interface, Internet News, Tech News  350 Responses »
Aug 032012
 

Large numbers of US homes have dropped pay-TV services, with big losses for satellite provider DirecTV, and cable companies Time Warner and Comcast. Rounding up the latest quarterly earnings results issued by major TV providers, Reuters reported today that Comcast lost 176,000 subscribers, Time Warner lost 169,000 customers, and DirecTV lost 52,000.

While Reuters said these losses total about 400,000 American homes dropping pay-TV service since the beginning of the year, it’s still a small minority. Time Warner Cable has more than 12 million customers, for example, and many customers simply switched services, as Verizon’s FiOS TV and AT&T’s U-verse added 275,000 subscribers in the second quarter. The second quarter is traditionally weak because of people moving before summer and college students leaving campus.

But this quarter’s losses were stark for DirecTV, which lost customers for the first time ever, and for Time Warner, who lost customers for the tenth straight quarter and lost more than analysts expected.

MORE:  US homes drop pay-TV as DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner lose subscribers | Ars Technica.

 

 Newer Entries