The Times in Johannesburg has launched the TimesCode which is basically slightly modified QR Code to include the label “TimeCodes”. Basically a marketing thing since those code are readable by any QR Code reader. Via The Pondering Primate
Continue reading
UPDATE: I apparently ran into a very specific problem (read bug) that Zong team has fixed in no time. See thread of comments. Good job, I go on with my testings and come back here for some more feedbacks.
I have tested Zong for one of the blog I am running and I ran into a very unpleasant experience. Zong is a SMS gateway (what is Zong ?) provided by Echovox (based in Geneva) that lets you create your own mobile service for your blog. One of them is an alert system based on the RSS feed (called Z-feed) which seems to be a very good idea (we had worked out something similar at Kaywa for our own blogs). Continue reading
I like the format of this blog (artefact.ch). It looks a bit like Twitter (short posts in a “river of news” format) but it is a blog. I might even “steal” the idea for the quotation :-)
Often I’d like to publish quickly something, might be a sentence or a link, and I do not do it because I get stuck to the “Title” or “Category” fields within my interface (well categories here are a mess and I am going to take them out now that WordPress 2.3 supports tags). This is probably what Twitter is suppose to do but I am still having a hard time to use it.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that as soon I have some time I will work on a bit on the layout here… :-)
UPDATE: Just found out about soup.io, the easiest way ever to publish, collect, and share what you’re creating, thinking about, or discovering online.
A widget, or should I say an image, that says it all…
Thanks to Russell I know now that AdSense for mobile is NOT based on JavaScript but it anyway emphasizes that wide JavaScript and Ajax support on handset is a milestone for the mobile web.
The XMLHttpRequest has improved a lot interfaces on the “normal” web to the point of creating a revolution (you know this web2.0 thing,…). There is no reason the same does not happen on the mobile web, especially given that smallest request to refresh only a small part of the screen and saving bandwidth is something you are really looking for on a slowest and way more expensive network.
Let Ajax and its magic request alone, JavaScript support would be already a big step towards better adoption because when I think about services on the web that are the most useful for a business and marketers it comes down to statistics and advertisements. Both services drive revenues and they are JavaScript based most of the time, so…
I just found out today about the Frost Ajax Library, a tool for Ajax development on constrained browsers, such as those on mobile phones or gaming consoles. I guess the mobile web is finding its way… and it is on track for Mobile Web 4.0
Nice panel with people from Kaywa, Shotcode and Deam Interactive in Barcelona for a Mobile Monday around Next Generation Mobile Marketing. Wish I could attend that one…
TelePresence is a big word for Cisco, and while talking about it around me I realized that it is not as well known as I expected. It does make sense since it is pretty expensive product that targets big company but there might be something similar for the “mass” market.
Anyway what is TelePresence ? In one sentence: Cisco TelePresence is a new technology that combines rich audio, high-definition video, and interactive elements to deliver a unique in-person experience—over the network.
Continue reading
Augme.com. Nice service that lets you generate barcode (either qrcode or datamatrix) for any mobile link. Once subscribe you can then generate your barcodes, tag them, search,… but I have not seen any statistic module.
Note that barcode generated move the targeted URL to augme.com domain. The URL encoded is hosted in another domain, format is the following: x.augme.com/somealphanumcode. Therefore when generating barcodes on augme.com you get tied to them.
I have been thinking about something similar with additional functionalities linked to the mobile world (transcoding service for instance) but I have not yet found the time to implement it…
I have updated the software running this blog to its latest version (2.3) released yesterday. This was done mainly to take advantage of the native tagging support because my category does not mean much! I know there was some plugins that handles that but it is much better to have it “native” (and I do not have to worry for the update ;-)
Upgrade went smooth, once again, no problem encountered. Groovy.
Technorati uses incoming links as a metric to rank blogs.
Del.icio.us and Digg (and other Digg-like) use voting mechanism.
Wikio uses a bit of both as well makes use of a semantic engine to categories the blogs.
Google as very complex algorithm.
I guess I’d like a service that “simply” make use of the number of comments in a post/blog. One could argue that this is exactly what coComment or co.mments.com is about but it does not seem to do exactly the job. coComment has ranks for posts and blogs but it is polluted by spam. So much that it actually makes it unusable, plus some features are missing. It would be nice to be able to set up our own timeframe (not only the last 10 days) and then add some filters (only french blogs, sport blogs). Maybe those filters could be added on top of the service but unfortunately coComment (neither co.mments.com) seems to have an API. This would really help to find out where does the discussion is happening.
Anyway the best ranking service one could think about is probably a very well-thought mix of all of these… to come I guess. Would be nice a nice mashup…
On a side note, I’d like to add that I have been testing the coComment Firefox extension. Kinda disapointing, it does not seem to work with all blogs (especially not with the I comment the most) plus it seems to be uncompatible with Prototype library (some website using Prototype did not work any more)
