| Hyperlocal Heartbreak: Why Haven't Neighborhood News Technologies Worked Out? Neighborhood news aggregator Outside.in has been acquired by AOL, according to multiple reports this morning. Apparently it's being bought for less than the big pile of money that high-profile investors put into it, back when hopes were high. It's sad, really: the ambitious hyper-local news technology services of the last few years don't seem to be working out very well. Outside.in, EveryBlock and Fwix are the three sites best known for building out automated collection and analysis of news about particular neighborhoods of cities around the United States. There is huge, exciting potential there - but it takes resources to develop technology and media sites like this. Maybe a shortage of resources is why none of these sites is the thriving hub of activity that many people hoped they would be. There are many different theories why, but all three of the leading startups in this space feel like a disappointment so far.
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Netflix Continues Its Crusade Against DVDs, Kills Queue on iPad App Netflix, the streaming movie and DVD subscription service, has continued on its march to a streaming-only future by removing the option to quickly and easily queue DVDs from yet another device. The company announced in January that it would begin removing the option from "streaming devices," but we wonder if users - who were outraged at the idea - realized that the move would extend to devices like the iPad.
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Mozilla Makes A Better Case for Web Apps in Minutes Than Google Did in Months When Google first introduced Chrome OS and the idea of "Web apps" last December, the idea made little sense to me. Then, over time, as I became used to it and started playing around with their prototype CR-48 unit, which runs the browser-based operating system, it began to make more and more sense. But still, there was something missing. Today, Mozilla announced its own Web app initiative and, in just minutes, it makes so much more sense than the vision put forth over the several months since the same idea was first introduced by Google.
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Avoid Long Lines & Jam Packed Parties at SXSW with Hurricane Party Apps like Plancast and Upcoming are great for finding out about big, pre-planned parties and networking events, but what about the impromptu afternoon game of beach volleyball or post-work happy hour? Hurricane Party, a startup out of Austin, Texas, is launching just in time for SXSW and hopes that its iPhone app can fill this space and help users to "find, share and create a party on the fly."
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Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time YouTube has come to define the era of online video, so let's take a look at its most popular videos of all time. Our latest update has Justin Bieber still at number 1 with Baby and closing in on half a billion views! Bieber also has the number 6, while Eminem has two videos inside the top 10 too. The baby and humor videos are hanging in there... just. "Charlie Bit My Finger" is at number 5, while "Evolution of Dance" is number 10. We first did this list in August 2007, at which point Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply was number 1 with nearly 56 million views. The next update was September 2008, when Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend pop music video was number 1 with 103 million page views (although commenters argued that it may have gamed the system). In January 2010, Charlie bit my finger - again ! was number 1, with 148 million views. Here is the top 10, as of March 2011:
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How Recent Changes to Twitter's Terms of Service Might Hurt Academic Research There is a lot to be learned from our tweets. Laugh if you will. Go ahead. But Twitter has become an important historical and cultural record. It's a site for real-time news and information, to be sure. The stuff of history with a capital H. Politics. Natural disasters. Revolution. It's a site that marks our cultural as well (is that history with a lower case H?). Ashton Kutcher. Charlie Sheen. The Oscars. Lower case or capital H - these 140 character exchanges have created an invaluable record for researchers looking at history, politics, literature, sociology. Such was the argument that Twitter made when the startup donated its archives to the Library of Congress. Tweets are important. They should be preserved, archived and accessible to scholars. But Twitter's recent announcement that it was no longer granting whitelisting requests and that it would no longer allow redistribution of content will have huge consequences on scholars' ability to conduct their research, as they will no longer have the ability to collect or export datasets for analysis.
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10 Smart Links You Missed on Twitter on Thursday
25% of news links on blogs last week were about Wisconsin: http://bit.ly/eaKrq2 via @sabew Of course we analyzed charliesheen's followers. Twitter Inc loves the #tigerblood! http://bit.ly/eD62Cl via @simplymeasured The things we love are going to die: Thoughts on the death of a Web property http://bit.ly/fMZGf5 via @catalyststudios What is a digital native? http://bit.ly/hRl20m via @digidickinson A new century spin on the piggy bank: Financial Tamagotchi: http://bit.ly/g83dnY via @walyou - More after the jump
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3 Tech Companies That Raised Funding Today - Which Moves You the Most? (Poll) Every day behind the scenes, investors and startups are putting their heads together to make new bets on what they hope will become the technologies of the future. Today three very different kinds of tech companies, each related to the topics we cover here at ReadWriteWeb, revealed new investments. One wants to make the battery power on devices we use to access the Web last longer. The second is a company that helps others navigate the world of Facebook advertising. The third is a stealthy provider of anti-malware services that models its Web traffic analysis software off of the workings of biological science. These three companies just got a boost to keep working to bring their technologies to market. As we often like to do in rounding up funding news, we'd like to ask in a poll: which of these companies intrigues you the most, readers?
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Communications Blocked in Libya, Qatari Blogger Arrested: This Week in Online Tyranny Internet blocked in Tripoli. According to journalist Lisa Goldman, who is in touch with several sources in a position to know, the Internet is being blocked in Libya's capital city of Tripoli. Long-distance land-line telephone service from the city is also down and mobile service appears interrupted, although that has yet to be confirmed. Inspired by Tunisia and Egypt's uprisings, Libyans began protesting at the beginning of last month. Given that, among other reasons, Libya's leader, Col. Moammar Qaddafi is far less connected to reality than the former leaders of those countries, this uprising has been much bloodier and more resembles a civil war than a large-scale protest. As many as 1,000 Libyans have been killed in the fighting.
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Ditto: Jaiku Founder Leaves Google, Aims to Beat it With Structured Recommendations "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt said last summer. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." What should you be doing next? A former Googler named Jyri Engeström, whose microblogging service Jaiku was cooler than Twitter, but was acquired into oblivion by Google three years ago, now thinks he can beat Google to the punch on that question. His new service Ditto launches today (iPhone app). It aims to use social suggestions, structured data and your existing Twitter and Facebook social graphs to recommend places and activities to fullfill your every desire.
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