Archive for October, 2009
Google adds more personalization to Reader
October 23rd, 2009 | 
Author: Google has added new personalization features to Reader, its RSS feed aggregator, the company wrote in a blog post Thursday.
One new feature is dubbed Popular Items. Using algorithms, Reader will “find top-rising images, videos and pages from anywhere (not just your subscriptions).” From there, the app will lump all those pieces in the new Popular Items section. Based on a user’s subscriptions and what someone is reading, Reader orders those stories by what it thinks a person likes best.
Reader’s recommendations have been moved to the app’s Explore section. Google also renamed it Recommended Sources. Like before, that feature will employ the user’s Reader Trends and Web History to find a list of feeds he or she might like.
To make it easier for users to find the information they’re most likely to care about, all Reader feeds now feature a sort option called Magic. According to Google, Magic “reorders items in the feed based on your personal usage, and overall activity in Reader, instead of default chronological order.” Google said that the ranking is tailored to the user. The more the user clicks the “like” and “share” buttons on stories, the better the Magic sort will be.
Here is the Magic setting in action:
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
If Windows 7 doesn’t work, it’s your fault
When, like Microsoft, you’ve suffered more criticism for your operating system than Tom Cruise has for his height, you have to really think deeply when you launch something new.
You could go out and continue to tell people that you’re very clever. But then they’d be a little more reluctant to believe you.
You could tout Windows 7 as the brainspawn of a whole new generation of terribly clever engineers. But then consumers might have a vision of an operating system created by pot-smoking, pot-bellied youths with the body odor of mousetrapped rats.
So you reach the conclusion that you’ve listened to both the great washed and unwashed out there and designed a new operating system completely according to their needs.
Full story plus video :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10381692-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
More signs Hulu subscription service is coming
On Thursday came more signals from News Corp. that Hulu will charge for at least some of its films and TV shows.
Chase Carey, News Corp.’s deputy chairman, suggested in comments he made at the OnScreen Media Summit that it’s just a matter of time before Hulu, the video service founded by News Corp. and NBC Universal, launches a subscription service.
“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content,” Carey said, according to a report Broadcasting & Cable, which co-hosted the conference. “I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value…Hulu concurs with (the notion) that it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”
Asked when Hulu would roll out its pay model, Carey, who has been to only one News Corp. board meeting since his recent arrival at the company, was less sure. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Carey thought the move would likely be made in 2010. He acknowledged however, that no timeline had been set.
Carey’s comments follow similar statements made by other News Corp. decision makers, including Rupert Murdoch, the company’s chairman. Murdoch has talked about charging for content at the online units of many of his media properties, including The Wall Street Journal.
If Hulu charges, it’s a big deal. The video site, which offers full-length TV shows from NBC Universal, Twentieth Century Fox Film, and other top entertainment companies, is a pioneer. It’s the first successful online ad-supported video service. If it begins to retreat from the ad-supported model, then what consumers may get left with is the cable model transplanted on the Web.
Charging for content online may not solve Hulu’s revenue problems. Subscription video-on-demand services have to compete with a score of sites that offer pirated content to consumers for free.
The presumption is that Hulu can’t sell enough ads or obtain the kind of ad rate that will generate the kind of money the studios are accustomed to getting. Experts say that if Hulu and other video sites try to put too many ads into the viewing experience, users will get annoyed.
It’s interesting to note that while News Corp. appears to be dissatisfied with the ad-supported model, Sony Pictures Entertainment appears to be doubling down on ad-supported Crackle.
None of the major studios are distributing more full-length feature films online than Sony Pictures. In February, Crackle began offering catalog film titles from its vast library on Crackle. Recently, “Taxidriver” made its ad-supported Internet debut.
Since Sony Pictures relaunched Crackle–formerly a user-generated video service–in February, the site’s premium monthly streams have grown to nearly 10 million, 27 percent of which were in the site’s core demographic (men, ages 18 to 34), according to statistics provided by ComScore. Time spent on Crackle has increased sevenfold in that period, to 13.4 minutes per unique session. In the core demographic, that number rises to 16.7 minutes.
Here’s another benefit that Crackle offers Sony. The site will post premium films when they aren’t under contract to a cable or broadcast TV station. Before Crackle came along, movies like “Taxidriver” would gather dust during the periods when they weren’t being aired.
We don’t know what kind of money is being made by Hulu or Crackle, but regardless of whether Hulu charges for its content, there is still hope for ad-supported movies and TV shows on the Internet.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10381622-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in Entertainment, Hulu, Internet | 
Tags: Hulu, News Corp, paid subscription | 
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Ford charges electric, hybrid strategy
BOSTON–Ford Motor expects to manufacture as many as 2 million all-electric and gas-electric vehicles in the next 10 years, betting that rising oil prices and consumer interest will sustain a long-term transition to new technologies.
The company has set a goal of making 10 percent to 25 percent of its fleet “electrified” by 2020, which represents somewhere between 800,000 and 2 million cars, said Nancy Gioia at a media event here on Wednesday. Ford announced on Wednesday that Gioia will hold a newly created position of director of global electrification, which covers hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery-electric vehicles.
Plug-in electric vehicles promise to offer a much lower cost-per-mile than gasoline cars and deliver substantial environmental benefits. But in the near term, hybrids will likely represent the largest volume in the mix of technologies, said Gioia at the event.
“We’ve finally demonstrated the technology, the life, the durability, the safety (of hybrids)–all of that has reached a comfort zone to make it viable. Now it’s going to be affordability that will drive mass market adoption,” she said.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10375326-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
How Chrome users can scrub Yahoo logo off Flickr
Those of you who hate the recent arrival of Yahoo’s logo on Flickr now have an easy way to erase it–and get a number of useful features–as long as you’re using an edgy version of Chrome.
Fittr Flickr lets you click ‘EXIF’ to expand a box below the image to show photo details.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)
Chrome extensions let people customize the browser’s behavior, and the Fittr Flickr extension from Gmail programmer Dan Pupius whips Yahoo’s photo-sharing site into shape. Some people use extensions for using Delicious bookmarks, banishing ads, and filling out forms, but this is my favorite Chrome extension so far.
The Yahoo logo is ugly but not too bothersome in my eyes. Instead, what I like best about Fittr Flickr is its keyboard navigation options. Once the extension is installed, you can type “?” to see the options, but the two I now use a lot are “.” and “,” to navigate forward and backward through a person’s photostream. Typing “s” will star a photo as a favorite, and in a nice Google touch harkening to the vi text editor, “/” will put your cursor in the search field.
To use Chrome extensions, though, you must be using the developer preview version of the browser, since extensions are something of a work in progress. (Click to download for Windows or Mac OS X.) I’ve had to restart Chrome sometimes to enable the last two extensions I tried out.
Another nice feature for pixel-peepers such as myself is the addition of an EXIF button below the photo that reveals camera, lens, and exposure details without navigating away from the photo. Nearby are direct links to the small, medium, and large version of the photos.
There are some other nice tidbits, too, involving viewing photos against a black background, comments, and other matters.
Yahoo has to make Flickr appeal to a large swath of people, most of whom probably don’t care about these options. But for me, they unlock some of Flickr’s potential.
Firefox users who want similar technology can try Dustin Diaz’s Quickr Flickr script, which requires the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox to be installed before the script can be added. Greasemonkey fans also can use a number of scripts that will un-Yahoo the logo.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10375399-264.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
