In a move that could keep ties with online games programmers strong, Adobe Systems is adding 3D graphics support to a coming version of its widely used browser plug-in.

The move is an important advancement for Flash, a software foundation that eases programmers’ difficulties with incompatibilities among various operating systems and browsers. And it’ll come none too soon: Flash is under siege by a host of Web standards, and part of that work focuses on 3D Web graphics.

Adobe plans to detail new 3D abilities coming to Flash Player.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The 3D plans came to light on an agenda for the Adobe Max conference in October. “Join Sebastian Marketsmueller, Adobe Flash Player engineer, for a deep dive into the next-generation 3D API [application programming interface] coming in a future version of Flash Player,” said the agenda item for a talk titled “Flash Player 3D Future.”

The “deep dive” is on the last day of the conference, so it’s reasonable to expect the official news to arrive earlier–say, during the Monday keynote address on October 25.

Later, Flash Player product manager Imbert Thibault offered a bit more of a teaser in a blog post. “I tell you, some serious stuff is coming for 3D developers.

“If you are into 3D development for games, augmented reality, or just interactive stuff like Web sites, you just can’t miss the session,” Thibault said. When exactly the technology will arrive isn’t clear, but Thibault said it is coming “in a future version of the Flash Player.”

Adobe added some 3D features to the 2008 release of Flash Player 10, but they were limited–for example, 2D objects could be manipulated in a 3D space. It wasn’t a full 3D environment like that you’d see in a first-person shooter game or the Second Life virtual world.

And although Adobe invested a lot of time in the newly released Flash Player 10.1, much of that was getting the software to work on hardware-constrained smartphones, where Flash is largely nonexistent today. Because Flash’s interface didn’t change, the version number was only a minor bump upward.

Adding a 3D interface to Flash would be a significant change for programmers, so expect a full step up in release numbers. Version 11 sounds like the right time frame for 3D’s full arrival, given the significant effort under way by many players to rebuild Flash features without relying on Adobe’s proprietary (albeit publicly documented) technology.

Some of what Flash can do is being rebuilt with standards including HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language used to describe Web pages, CSS, the Cascading Style Sheets used for formatting, SVG, the Scalable Vector Graphics technology, and JavaScript, the programming language of choice for Web applications. Examples of the new era coming in recent browsers include support for HTML’s 2D graphics technology called Canvas and CSS’s downloadable typeface technology called WOFF, or Web Open Font Format.

But the future of 3D on the Web is murkier. Major browsers, including Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s Chrome, and Apple’s Safari, are being fitted right now with 3D technology called WebGL. It’s based on an existing standard, OpenGL, that has wide if not universal support.

3D doesn’t end with WebGL. Google is using it as a foundation for library of code to provide a higher-level Web graphics 3D interface that began as a browser plug-in called O3D.

Here’s the rub, though: Internet Explorer. Although Microsoft is supporting a wide range of new standards in its forthcoming IE9, WebGL is not on the list.

“I think it’s different markup,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of IE, in an earlier interview, meaning that WebGL is antithetical to Microsoft’s current “same markup” marketing push that Web developers should be able to write code for one Web page that works compatibly under all browsers.

Flash sidesteps such browser compatibility issues by providing an interface.

However, it comes with its own baggage, such as the fact that Flash elements on a Web page often are isolated from other elements and behave differently. And Flash brings stability and security concerns, as Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs pointed out in a high-profile explanation of why Apple banned Flash from the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Online games are a major use of Flash, as sites such as Kongregate and Armor Game can attest and as Jobs acknowledged in his letter. Thus far, however, those Flash games tend to be casual affairs; the heavy-duty blockbusters are usually written to take advantage of an operating system’s native interface, such as Microsoft’s Direct3D.

Notably, Google is trying to marry this native approach with Web-based methods using its Native Client technology, which lets Web applications tap into a computer’s processing power.

While Flash isn’t likely at least in the near term to replace games that use the native operating system, getting 3D abilities would substantially expand the range of games developers could write, bringing new depth to those for racing cars or tossing wads of paper into a trash can, for example. Support for hardware acceleration would be essential for Flash 3D graphics, especially on mobile devices with limited processors and battery life.

It’s not clear which of these approaches or others will prevail, so Web developers will have to choose carefully which technology to use for new projects.

It’s clear that change is in the air. Scribd opted to move from Flash to HTML5 and other Web standards for its online document business. But despite Google’s ardent support for the Web standards, YouTube continues to rely on Flash as its primary vehicle for delivering video, and Google has built Flash directly into Chrome.

Adobe hasn’t said when the next version of Flash Player will arrive, but here’s one clue: Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch promised Flash will support Google’s VP8 video compression technology, and he promised that version would arrive within a year of the May release of VP8.

Another big item likely to arrive in the next Flash Player is 64-bit support. Here again, Adobe hasn’t been willing to commit to a time frame, but given that browsers are following the processor and operating system transitions from 32-bit to 64-bit, a release soon must be a priority.

Flash developers obviously have plenty on their plates. But one last thing: don’t assume that Adobe is betting on the Flash horse alone. It’s also getting more involved in the world of HTML and CSS.

At the same Max conference, another talk will focus on creating Web applications with HTML5 and CSS3. “Get up to speed on the latest developments in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS,” the agenda exhorts. “HTML5 has become a powerful way to add interactivity and video to the Web.”

from here

internet video collaboration, instant web meetings, atul abraham

Powered by ScribeFire.

Go here to read the rest:
Adobe: Flash to take 3D graphics plunge

Read more here:
The Nexus : Whats Inside ?

Amazon adds media streaming to content delivery service | Cloud Computing – InfoWorld

Credit:
Amazon adds media streaming to content delivery service

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

Read more here:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

See the original post:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Call me pls :

Telefon : 0676  9145922

Telefon : 05262 66068

or SKYPE : abrahamatul2006

or MSN : instantwebmeetings(a)live.at

speak to you soon !

best regards, Abraham

View original here:
Dear Claudio !

Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography | Software, Interrupted – CNET News

In addition to new features such as support for HTML 5, geo-location, and a noticeably faster engine, Firefox 3.5 added a new CSS rule that makes Web typography much more attractive.

@font-face is a CSS rule that allows Web designers to reference fonts not installed on end-user machines. Just as you would have a pointer to a server-based stylesheet or JavaScript file in your Web page code, you can now make reference to a hosted typeface.

You’ll note that news sites such as CNET News and NYTimes.com are optimized to make Web type more readable and as stylish as possible, but there are many design possibilities via additional downloadable typefaces. (As with any linked asset, there is some level of security risk if a hacker gets their hands on the font file.)

Mozilla’s John Daggett explains: Within a stylesheet, each @font-face rule defines a family name to be used, the font resource to be loaded, and the style characteristics of a given face such as whether it’s bold or italic. Firefox 3.5 only downloads the fonts as needed, so a stylesheet can list a whole set of fonts of which only a select few will actually be used.

This function is something I would have expected to be commonplace by now (Safari began supporting it in Version 3.1 and Opera in Version 10) but neither have the market share to drive usage the way Firefox and Internet Explorer do. (Note: this function doesn’t work in IE.)

Generally speaking, the Web browser has done a terrible job with type. We’ve been stuck with old standbys such as Helvetica or Times New Roman, and don’t forget the oft-loathed Comic-Sans and other delightful Microsoft fonts that are often easy to read but lack any real style (Verdana, for example.)

As Craig Mod writes: “Fine typography has always been one of the stumbling points of Web design. Limited at most to a handful of cross-platform specific fonts, Web designers have often found it necessary to hack their way into typographically nuanced territory.”

New font possibilities won’t necessarily make you more popular or a better designer, but @font-face does open the door to make Web pages much more attractive and readable without being forced in Flash or other plug-in based solutions.

This of course is provided that font developers figure out ways to make their typefaces available freely or in a manner that encourages developers to use them. From a technical perspective, Firefox 3.5 allows fonts only to be loaded for pages served from the same site. This prevents sites from freely using fonts found on other sites and gives a bit of protection, but not much.

Most commercial type foundries aren’t prepared for this and generally don’t have licenses that are conducive to this type of use. But there is a big opportunity to get stylish new typefaces onto browsers worldwide, provided font designers are ready to embrace an open mindset.

(Note: I recognize the irony that I can’t use the @font-face tag to demonstrate. Please take a look here and here for examples.)

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.

Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography

Personal computing is currently in a state of transition. While traditionally users have interacted mostly with desktop applications, more and more of them are using web applications. But the latter often fit awkwardly into the document-centric interface of web browsers. And they are surrounded with controls–like back and forward buttons and a location bar–that have nothing to do with interacting with the application itself.

Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur.

Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.

The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we’ve moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism.

Prism

Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.

Prism lets users add their favorite web apps to their desktop environment:

When invoked, these applications run in their own window:

They are accessible with Control-Tab, Command-Tab, and Exposé, just like desktop apps. And users can still access these same applications from any web browser when they are away from their own computers.

The Best of Both Worlds

Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.

The User Experience

We’re also thinking about how to better integrate Prism with Firefox, enabling one-click “make this a desktop app” functionality that preserves a user’s preferences, saved passwords, cookies, add-ons, and customizations. Ideally you shouldn’t even have to download Prism, it should just be built into your browser.

We’re working on an extension for Firefox that provides some of this functionality. For more information about the user experience we hope to achieve in Prism, see Alex Faaborg’s blog post. For some of the technical details and new features found in Prism, see Mark Finkle’s blog post.

Getting Started with Prism

We have an early prototype for this working today on Windows, with work continuing on Mac and Linux (for which we should have builds available soon).

To try out the prototype, download and install it: Download Prism for Windows.

Then start Prism. It will display an Install Web Application dialog.

Enter the URL of the application you want to use in Prism (e.g. mail.google.com), a name for the application (e.g. Gmail), and pick where you’d like to create shortcuts to the application.

Then press the OK button. Prism will create shortcuts to the application in the locations you specified and then start the application.

How to Get Involved

Prism is just the first of many experiments we hope to conduct around improving the usability of web applications. It’s open source, like everything we do, and we’re interested in hearing from and working with anyone interested in further developing this concept.

• Discuss, debate and add to the design in the forum. Report bugs in Bugzilla.
• Get the source code, extend it, fix bugs and/or submit patches.

  The project lead for Prism is Mark Finkle and contributors include Cesar Oliveira, Wladimir Palant, Sylvain Pasche, Alex Faaborg, and Myk Melez.
  
  SOURCE

Powered by ScribeFire.

Read more from the original source:
Introducing Prism

The Several Habits of Wildly Successful Twitter Users

Twitter is a deceptively simple utility. That said, Twitter isn’t for everyone. In fact it’s probably not even for half of everyone. But for those that have the patience to find their personal sweet spot, Twitter can be quite good indeed. If you’re not familar with Twitter, it’s pretty easy to describe. It’s instant messaging with a group. You post a short message via IM, web or other utility (see below) and other Twitterers who are “following” you will see your message. Some have called Twitter a form of microblogging and I think that’s a helpful way of looking at it. Most people don’t quite “get” Twitter at first. This post aims to give you a leg up on the learning curve. For starters, you’ll need an account and you can do that here (yeah, it’s free). Once you’ve got your account, you might feel lonely. I’m here for you, buddy. Just click “add”.

Just a little more intro before we jump into the Habits. Most Twitter newbies are underwhelmed by what they find there. It seems…useless. And unless you persevere a bit, you’ll probably walk away from your account wondering what the fuss was all about. This post aims to help give you a leg up on the Twitter learning curve. One last note: if you’ve never used instant messaging before, this may change your mind. It may also be the last straw that convinces you to become Amish. You’ve been warned.

Habit One: Make the right friends
This habit is pretty much the engine that drives many of the other habits. It is so easy to “follow” someone in Twitter that many folks go a little bit overboard at first. If you can handle the firehose of twittering, go for it. Otherwise, don’t get wrapped up in the “more is better” trap.

* Really think about what kind of info you want pushed your way. If you’re interested in what all the cool geek kids are doing, then go ahead and follow them–they’re all there.
* You can add friends on the web by going to their profile and clicking the “add” link.
* You can add friends via IM, if you know their username by sending an IM to the twitter@twitter.com contact and typing: follow USERNAME
* You can add your friends cell phone numbers by sending an IM to the twitter@twitter.com contact and typing: add CELLNUMBER (where CELLNUMBER is their number)
* Alternately you may be the only person in your social circle who does IM, in which case you might only want to get particular types of news pushed at you. There are currently several Twitter accounts that will serve up various flavors of news. You can follow the BBC (there are a bunch of flavors, just search for ‘bbc’ in the Twitter search box), the Digg frontpage, CNN breaking news (again, type ‘cnn’ in the search box to get the most updated options). There’s no ESPN, or Fark or Slashdot yet (at least that I can find, but I’m sure they’re coming).
* The search box is your friend, use it. Also, don’t be shy about bouncing around and looking at who’s following who. You’ll discover a lot of interesting people out there. Just remember that you can always turn down or turn off the firehose of information if becomes overwhelming. To turn it off, just send this IM to Twitter: off And I bet you can guess how to turn it back on…

Habit Two: Put it where you want it
In it’s most basic form, Twitter is a webpage with a text box where you can enter a little message. But you don’t need to stop there.

* Once you’ve got your account set up, you can add twitter@twitter.com as a contact in whatever IM software you use (I use Adium on the Mac, and it’s awesome).
* Additionally, you can get your Twitter pushed to your phone, if that’s how you want it. Just check the appropriate bits in your devices settings. You can send SMS to 40404 if you’re in the US. Outside the US use +44 7781 488126
* If you use Gmail and GoogleTalk, you can add twitter@twitter.com as a contact and get your stuff there.
* If you’ve got a Blackberry, you should check out the Google Talk client and use it there. As if you needed another reason to fiddle with that thing in meetings.
* Same deal with Treos, actually. Any of the Treo IM clients will work with Twitter. If you must, just Google “Treo IM” and you’ll get a lot of leads. I’ve tried a few, but it’s really more than I can take. Good luck to you.
* On the Mac you’ve got a couple of standalone options. There’s Twitterific and Twitterpost. Regardless of which one you use, be sure to add the corresponding Twitter user to your friends list in Twitter. Twitterific is at http://twitter.com/twitterific and Twitterpost is at http://twitter.com/twitterpost. You’ll get updates on bugfixes, etc by adding them.
* If you’re rocking the PC you might check out Twitteroo. As with the Mac options, add the Twitteroo user as a friend in Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitteroo. There are no updates as I write this, but I’m sure that’ll change.
* If you want to take all this just a little bit slower, you can just grab the RSS feed for all the folks that you’re following, or for individual users. If you don’t IM, and you just want to follow a few people, you can grab their feeds–just go to their Twitter page and look at the bottom left corner for the RSS link. Subscribing to your own RSS feed (the one that contains all the twitters from the people you’re following) is a good idea. It acts as an archive of the content which can be quite helpful.

Habit Three: Own it
If you’re unafraid of spreading yourself around the web, be sure to claim your Twitter page with Technorati and expand your digital empire. If you don’t have a Technorati account, just sign up (free). Once you’ve got your account go to your blog settings and at the bottom of the page there’s a place to put in your blog url. This is just http://twitter.com/YOUR-USERNAME. Replace YOUR-USERNAME with, you know, your Twitter username. You’ll then be presented with two options for claiming your blog (which is just your Twitter home page). Choose the posting method. Copy the code and send it to Twitter via any of the methods described above. Done.

Habit Four: Address your followers
By default, when you send a note via Twitter it goes to everyone that’s following you. If you just want to send a note directly to someone, you can get them via the direct messages web interface. Additionally, if you’re twittering via IM, you can use the direct command to send private-ish messages to a contact. Just type: D USERNAME your message here. That’ll send a message directly to that person without bothering all your other followers. If you don’t mind hitting everyone else with a private message, you can publically address that person by following the standard “@” convention. That is, just type: @USERNAME: your message here. That way everyone knows who you’re talking to.

Habit Five: Hack it
People are doing interesting and innovative stuff with Twitter. Feel free to leave a comment if you know about cool Twitter hacks that everyone should know about!

* Check out this recent post over at Lifehack.org that covers “five ways to use Twitter for good.” I particularly like the ideas of friendsourcing and quick human answers.
* Also, various mashups of Twitter search results, RSS feeds and jedi tricks with stuff like Yahoo Pipes can result in some very interesting customized info streams. Check out Christopher S. Penn’s post on Twitter Power Tips.
* Use your skills to take your favorite RSS feed (or spliced feed) and HTTP POST (via API) to create a custom Twitter account that anyone can befriend.(hint: this can be a nice traffic builder…but only if you have the skillz)

Habit Six: Play with it

* Use the Firefox Search Plugin to post directly to your Twitter account (so cool)
*
* Use the Twitter confessional to get clean
* Participate in the Twitter fan wiki (tons more tools in there)
* View info about Twitterers by posting: whois USERNAME This will return the standard Twitter bio for that user
* Try Steve’s Twitter search engine
* Search for friends and coworkers. Heck, search for the guy that just sent you his resume.
* Check out the Twitter help page for more tips on commands. Also see this Library Clips post for more of the same.

So there you go. This is by no means a comprehensive list of Twitterliciousness, but I hope it gets you thinking in new directions, and helps give you a leg up on figuring out Twitter. As a final sign off, here’s a brief wishlist that I’d like to see built into Twitter:

* A way to create an account with an RSS feed for auto-posting (rather than having to work with the API)
* A decent integrated search engine
* Some kind of groups feature with privacy options. It’d be nice to have a Twitter group for my office. I know this can be hacked, but we are not a technical people at my office.

SOURCE

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Several Habits of Wildly Successful Twitter Users

It’s no secret that Twitter continues to spread like wildfire. More and more businesses – small, medium, and large – are hopping on the Twitter bandwagon. Are they doing it for the right reasons? Well, some of them sure are.

Twitter is increasingly becoming an integral component of brand management for many companies. Since tens of millions of people are using Twitter, companies – especially larger ones – should assume that many of their clients and customers are actively using Twitter. However, that’s not to say that only large companies should be monitoring their brand on Twitter. It’s just as important – if not more important – that smaller companies keep an eye on tweets about their company and brand.

Bad PR on Twitter can destroy a company.

A few negative tweets can quickly obliterate the reputation and credibility of a small company. It’s not the few tweets alone that do the damage, it’s the exponential potential of “ReTweeting” (RT) by other Twitter users that can rapidly spread across the micro-blogosphere, to the blogosphere, and eventually to highly trafficked news websites and blogs. Scary, especially if the complaint is inaccurate or is the result of a simple misunderstanding on either side of the fence.

Good PR on Twitter can, well, do a lot for a company.

Companies who are managing their brand via Twitter – whether it be through customer service or promotion –  increase their transparency to the public and show that they care about their customers (and their brand). In addition, just as negative tweets have the potential to quickly spread and destroy a company, positive tweets have the potential to quickly spread and strengthen the image and credibility of a company.

It’s time to focus on the positive. It’s time to give credit and praise to the companies who have utilized Twitter for the greater good of the consumer.

Twitter Brand Management Cases

Some companies have quickly caught on to the obvious benefits of monitoring and managing their brand on Twitter. Here are some case studies about small and large companies using Twitter as a tool for brand management and customer service:

1. Comcast: If we could give an award to the company exhibiting the most extraordinary PR efforts on Twitter, Comcast would be the recipient. Rebecca from SEOmoz shares her fantastic experience with @ComcastBill.
2. Southwest Airlines: This airline giant checks up on a dissatisfied Twitter user.
3. NetworkSolutions: This NetworkSolution’s client was having trouble updating a client’s website due to the fact that she couldn’t gain access to her client’s FTP server. NetworkSolutions came to the rescue within an hour of her initial tweet.
4. FireFox: A user of the FireFox browser changed a setting that resulted in an undesirable result. A FireFox representative quickly provided a fix via Twitter and saved the day.
5. Verizon: A customer ran into some issues with Verizon’s fiber-optic service (FIOS). After some complaining on Twitter, a “top Verizon presence on the web” came to the aid of the distressed customer.
6. DISQUS: The co-founder of DISQUS, a popular third-party commenting system, came to the aid of a blogger having difficulty getting the service to work with his blog. A very interesting service-oriented approach.
7. Comcast: Since Comcast is exceptional at Twitter-based customer service, we share another one of their fantastic PR efforts. This time, Michael Arrington from TechCrunch shares his positive experience with Comcast via Twitter.

Get on Twitter!

Bravo to the companies who have embraced Twitter as a medium for customer service and support. For those who haven’t: what are you waiting for? Get on Twitter!

SOURCE

Continued here:
7 Impressive Twitter Customer Service/Brand Management Cases

Mozilla reveals plans for Firefox 3.2

Source:
Mozilla reveals plans for Firefox 3.2

IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain

Read more here:
IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain

It seems that the world and his dog now have a Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku or Plurk account. Some of us see these services as an extension of our mobile phone or our blog, some as a way to get into internet communications. Whatever you like to call it, microblogging has propelled itself into the internet limelight. It seems that people just can’t get enough of posting 140 characters of text.

Perhaps the reason these services have become so widespread is that the creators of these networks have released public API’s, allowing third party developers to utilize the services these networks offer. Examples of these API’s at work can be found inside our very favourite internet browser; Mozilla Firefox. Eliminating the need to install software and run it on your desktop, Firefox allows you to install powerful add-ons that add to the functionality of pre-existing websites.

Today I wish to share with you four Firefox add-ons that will add microblogging functionality to your browser meaning you will never miss a beat when it comes to updating or interacting around your microblog.

1. Pingfire

Pingfire is an add-on that connects to your Ping.fm account to allow the updating of services such as Facebook, Jaiku, Pownce, Twitter, Plurk, even your Wordpress blog simultaneously.

Sitting nicely on your toolbar, a simple click will bring up a Pingfire input box, allowing you to specify where you wish to post to, the title of your post (if you are posting to your blog for example) and of course the message – which features a visual counter, alerting you if you exceed your 140 character limit on Twitter, Plurk et al.

You can select which network you wish to post to, using @fb to post to Facebook and @tt for Twitter, it doesn’t just work as a mass status updater.

One of it’s most useful features is the ability to quote text on any given webpage. All it requires is you to highlight the text you wish to post, click the Pingfire button on your toolbar and selected text and the URL to that page is added to your message.

To setup Pingfire, download the add-on from the official Firefox Addons website, supply it with your Ping.fm Key and you’re all set.

2. Yoono

Yoono touts itself as a tool that can “socialize your browser”. Weighing in at two megabytes, Yoono is deployed in your Firefox sidebar, allowing you to interact with people on your social networks, view their updates and also update your own. After sharing your login credentials, Yoono routinely updates your feeds, allows universal status updates and opens up your instant messaging networks to communicate straight from your browser.

Yoono currently supports MSN, Yahoo!, Gtalk, AIM, Facebook, MySpace, iMeem, Flickr, Twitter, Youtube, Last.fm, Seeqpod, Picz and Friendfeed.

It also boasts browser enhancements such as bookmark synchronisation, content sharing via its drag and drop interface and more recently integrates a shopping widget. Shopping portals such as eBay, Amazon, Buy.com and Shopping.com are supported.

Simply put, Yoono is a social aggregator that, combined with it’s recommendation system, allows you to keep your finger on your friends activity without any extra software or even leaving your browser.

3. Plurk Sidebar

Plurk rose to fame when Twitter was experiencing the worst of it’s outage issues. Many users complimented its interface and ability to start more in-depth conversations through its threaded replies.

Although there is currently an unofficial one, there is not a publicly available Plurk API. This has led to many “workarounds” when it comes to building add-ons that compliment the service. That said, there is a Plurk Firefox add-on which is aptly named Plurk Sidebar.

Plurk Sidebar doesn’t feature the layout and interaction that is featured on it’s website. It does however bring a more Twitter-esqe feel to Plurk, using the Mobile version of Plurk as its foundation.

Installation of the Plurk Sidebar requires you to download the addon to your desktop and to physically drag and drop it into your Firefox Addon’s window.

Once installed, drag the Plurk icon onto your toolbar. As the sidebar uses Plurk’s mobile site, you will not need to supply this add-on with any login credentials, it should use your Plurk cookie for this.

4. FriendFeed Sidebar

The FriendFeed Sidebar is not technically a Firefox addon, more of a Firefox tweak. Many readers will be aware of MySocial 24×7, an addon that incorporated FriendFeed functionality into a Firefox sidebar. Unfortunately development was halted as Firefox released the third version of it’s browser, meaning most users were left without the ability to interact with FriendFeed without visiting the site itself.

Recently FriendFeed released their “Real Time” feature, an update that allowed users to see updates on their friend’s activity as it happened without the need to refresh. This Firefox tweak harnesses this new feature and incorporates it into a sidebar without the need for the installation of a third party addon.

The process is easy. Simply follow these simple steps:

1) Add the following link to your bookmarks: http://friendfeed.com/realtime?embed=1

2) Right click the bookmark inside and select properties.

3) Tick the “Load this bookmark in the sidebar”.

Once this has been done, select the bookmark from your list and it will display the FriendFeed real-time updates in a sidebar.

Conclusion

Many of these add-ons have a direct crossover and it may mean you won’t need to install these four tools mentioned inside the same Firefox installation. Some of these tools have greater practical applications inside the workplace as they don’t require you to visit the actual website in question.

Do you have any tools that you think would warrant a place on this list? If so, the comments section is your friend.

More about: Facebook, firefox tips, friendfeed, microblogging, Twitter

SOURCE

Originally posted here:

Google has introduced a new Web browser, called Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The move takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level. If Google succeeds, it will be a big deal, with major ramifications for the future of the Web.

But just how good is Chrome? How does it differ from IE and from less popular, but still important, browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari?

I’ve been testing Chrome for about a week, trying out all its features and using it side by side with Microsoft’s latest iteration of IE, which came out just last week.

My verdict: Chrome is a smart, innovative browser that, in many common scenarios, will make using the Web faster, easier and less frustrating. But this first version — which is just a beta, or test, release — is rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later. These omissions include a way to manage bookmarks, a command for emailing links and pages directly from the browser, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded.

Chrome’s interface has some bold changes from the standard browser design. These new features enhance the Web experience, but they will require some adjustment on the part of users. For instance, Chrome does away with most menus and toolbar icons to give maximum screen space for the Web pages themselves. Also, Google has merged the address bar, where you type in Web addresses, with the search box, where you type in search terms. This unified feature is called the Omnibox.

One striking difference in Chrome is how it handles tabs, which display a single Web page. In Chrome, each tab behaves as a separate browser. The bookmarks bar, Omnibox, menus and toolbar icons are located inside the tab, rather than atop the entire browser. The tabs appear at the top of the computer screen. Chrome also groups related tabs. If you open a new tab from a link in a page that’s already open, that new tab appears next to the originating page, rather than at the end of the row of tabs.

Despite Google’s claims that Chrome is fast, it was notably slower in my tests at the common task of launching Web pages than either Firefox or Safari. However, it proved faster than the latest version of IE — also a beta version — called IE8.

Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn’t been sitting still. The second beta version of IE8 is the best edition of Internet Explorer in years. It is packed with new features of its own, some of which are similar to those in Chrome, and some of which, in my view, top Chrome’s features.

Google’s Chrome browser displays thumbnails of a user’s most-visited pages when a new tab is opened, rather than a blank page.

For example, while IE8 also groups related tabs, it assigns a different color to each such tab group and allows you to close them all with one click. It has a “smart” address box of its own, that drops down a list of suggestions as you type, though it retains a separate search box.

IE8 also has breakthrough privacy features that exceed Chrome’s, and includes a new technology called Accelerators, which allows you to take rapid action on any selected word or phrase on a Web page, such as generating a map for a place name, without switching to a new page.

As they develop, each of these browsers has a good chance of besting Firefox 3.0, which I have regarded as the best Web browser for Windows, the only operating system on which Chrome currently runs. But they will have to get faster at loading pages. And, to best Firefox on the Macintosh, Google will have to make good on its promise to produce a Mac version of Chrome, something it says it will do in the coming months. Microsoft has no plans to produce a Mac version of IE8.

Chrome and IE8 are far more advanced than Apple’s Safari. Safari is speedy on both Mac and Windows platforms, but lacks many of the key intelligent features of its newer Google and Microsoft rivals.

Why is Google igniting a new browser war? There are two main reasons, and both involve competing with Microsoft. First, the search giant fears that because its search engine and other major products depend on the browser, Microsoft — with its rival online products — might be able to gain an advantage by altering the design of IE, which has roughly a 75% market share.

Second, and more important, Google sees the Web as a platform for the software programs, or applications, that currently run directly on computer operating systems, notably Microsoft’s Windows. It says current browsers lack the underlying architecture to enable future, more powerful Web applications that will rely more heavily on a common Web programming language called JavaScript. Chrome was designed to be the world’s speediest browser at handling JavaScript.

That move might one day make Chrome a sort of online operating system that competes with Windows. “Think of Chrome as more than a simple Web browser,” Google declares. “It’s a platform for running Web applications.”

Microsoft’s IE8 has an ”Accelerator” feature that lets users select any Web text and then map, translate, search or email their selection without leaving the page.

I tested Chrome, and IE8, on a plain-vanilla Lenovo ThinkPad laptop running Windows XP, and equipped with a modest processor and one gigabyte of memory.

To gauge Chrome’s speed at loading Web pages, I launched two large groups of typical Web pages simultaneously, each site opening in its own tab. One group included 15 sports sites, the second 19 news sites. In both tests, Chrome’s speed fell in the middle, at 35 and 44 seconds, respectively. IE8 was slower, taking 49 and 75 seconds to open the two groups of sites. But Firefox and Safari were much faster, notching identical speeds of 19 seconds for the 15 sites and 28 seconds for the 19 sites.

Google claims that future, more sophisticated Web applications relying more heavily on JavaScript than today’s sites do would run faster on Chrome. Of course, I couldn’t test any claim about future scenarios, but I did run Chrome on several JavaScript test sites, used by developers. It handily beat the other browsers. However, Google doesn’t claim users would see much difference on current Web application sites.

I also tested Chrome’s compatibility with scores of common Web sites. In general, it did well, rendering the sites properly. But I ran into problems with video. Some video sites refused to recognize Chrome, because its development has been a secret. On others, like Major League Baseball’s site, videos mostly played properly, but sometimes didn’t.

IE8 also has some compatibility issues, for different reasons. It’s the first version of Internet Explorer to hew closely to Web standards. Earlier versions used some nonstandard ways of rendering Web sites, prompting some site designers to adopt techniques that made their pages work in IE, but look odd in Firefox and Safari. Now, ironically, these pages also look strange in IE8. So Microsoft was forced to build in a special Compatibility View button that users must click to see the sites properly.

Chrome is built on three core design principles. The first is its spare user interface: just two menus and a handful of toolbar icons. IE introduced a similar approach in its version 7, but with a difference. Microsoft allows users to restore a traditional menu bar; Google doesn’t. The only toolbar icon you can add in Chrome is a Home button.

The second principle is that a user can type anything into a single place, the Omnibox, and instantly get suggestions on where to go, gleaned from the user’s own browsing history and Google’s rankings of popular sites. Whether you type in a Web address or a search term, the Omnibox is very smart. In my tests, it sometimes came up with the right destination after I typed only one or two letters of the name of a site I often visited.

The Omnibox has another cool feature: Tab-to-Search. If you type in the name of another site that includes its own search feature, like Amazon.com, the Omnibox lets you just press the tab key to search within that site, without opening it first. Chrome, through its Options settings, also lets you change the default search engine used by the Omnibox. Instead of Google’s own search service, you can use Microsoft’s Live search, Yahoo search, or others.

The third big principle behind Chrome is that each tab runs, under the hood, as a separate browser. Tabs can be dragged off the main browser and turned into separate windows. If one tab crashes, the rest of the browser keeps running. But this doesn’t work perfectly. In my tests, all of Chrome died on me when I tried watching an Olympics video on the NBC site.

You can even make a tab a standalone application that runs from the Start Menu, or the desktop, as if it was a separate program.

Chrome has a few other key features. When you open a new tab, you don’t get a blank page, but a set of thumbnails for your most-visited pages, plus lists of recent search engines you’ve used, recently used bookmarks and recently closed tabs.

Like other browsers, Chrome puts up a warning when you try to visit a malicious or phony Web site, and it has a private browsing mode, called Incognito, which allows you to browse without leaving any history on your computer — a feature popularized in Safari.

Chrome also has a pop-up blocker, but it’s annoying because it flashes a notice that a pop-up has been blocked. IE also does this, but unlike in Chrome, the warnings are much less intrusive.

Internet Explorer 8 has some new features Chrome lacks. Its private browsing mode, called InPrivate, is the first I’ve seen that not only leaves no traces on your own computer, but also bars Web sites from collecting some types of information on where you’ve previously been surfing.

While IE8’s address box and search box remain separate, each also offers rapid suggestions; and both are organized better than Chrome’s. For instance, the suggestions that drop down from its address bar are divided neatly into categories drawn from the browser’s own guess, your history and your favorites. One downside: For this to work in Windows XP, you must first install Microsoft’s desktop search product.

Like Chrome, IE8 lets you switch your default search provider, but it also allows you to switch search engines on the fly. When you type in a search term, icons for alternate search engines appear at the bottom of the suggestion list, and you need only click on these to see search results from, say, Google, instead of Microsoft’s own Live search engine.

IE8’s Accelerators feature presents a blue-arrow icon above any text on a Web page that you have selected. Clicking on the icon brings up a list of actions you can take using the selected text, such as posting it to a blog, emailing it, mapping it or searching it. While these actions are set by default to use Microsoft’s own Web services, you can change them to use Google’s, Yahoo’s, or those from other companies.

Microsoft also has built in a feature called Web Slices. These are portions of a Web site that a site developer can designate to appear in the IE8 Favorites bar and to constantly update themselves. An example might be bidding on eBay.

Like Chrome, IE8 also displays useful information whenever you create a new tab, including a list of recently closed tabs and a list of Accelerators.

With the emergence of Chrome, consumers have a new and innovative browser choice, and with IE8, the new browser war is sure to be a worthy contest.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

See the original post:

Does the world really need another Web browser?

Skip to next paragraph

Illustration by The New York Times

 

Related

Managing Globalization Blog (IHT)

The Developing World’s Browser?

Go to Blog »

Google thinks so. Chrome, its new browser, was developed in secrecy and released to the world Tuesday. The Windows version is available for download now at google.com/chrome; the Mac and Linux versions will take a little longer.

Google argues that current Web browsers were designed eons ago, before so many of the developments that characterize today’s Web: video everywhere, scams and spyware, viruses that lurk even on legitimate sites, Web-based games and ambitious Web-based programs like Google’s own Docs word processor. As Google’s blog puts it, “We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser.”

What this early version of Chrome accomplishes isn’t quite that grand. But it is a first-rate beginning.

With no status bar, no menu bar and only a single toolbar (for bookmarks), Chrome is minimalist in the extreme.

Some might even call it stripped-down. This initial version is labeled “beta,” meaning it is still in testing. True, Google labels almost everything beta — four-year-old Gmail is still in beta — but this time it’s serious.

At the moment, for example, there’s no way to e-mail a Web page to someone, no full-screen mode, no way to magnify the page (rather than just the text), and no bookmarks organizing screen. Google says that these features are at the top of its to-do list.

Chrome is, nonetheless, full of really smart features that seem to have been inspired by other browsers — or ripped off from them, depending on your level of cynicism.

Take the address bar. As you start to type, a menu of suggestions appears immediately beneath — a list culled not just from pages you’ve visited before, but also from your bookmarks, search suggestions and popular Web pages that you haven’t yet visited. That works even the first time you try it, since Chrome auto-imports your bookmarks, history and even stored passwords from your old browser. (See also: the similar address bars in Firefox and Internet Explorer 8, also now in beta testing.)

If you’ve ever searched Amazon, eBay, nytimes.com or another popular site, another cool shortcut awaits. You can just type the site’s first letter in the address bar and then press Tab. Do that with “A,” for example, and the address bar changes to “Search amazon.com,” allowing you to search within that site without even going there first. You’ve saved one big step.

As your start-up page, Chrome displays pictures of nine mini-Web pages, representing your most frequently visited sites. (See also: the Opera browser’s Speed Dial feature.) This start-up page also lists several of your most recently visited sites and searches, making it a natural, time-saving starting point. (You can designate a more standard Home page if you prefer by clicking on the Options command that hides in one of the two menu icons.)

The “Create application shortcuts” command (also hiding in those menus) generates an icon on your desktop. When you click it, the corresponding site opens without the usual address bar and buttons — in other words, it now works exactly like a regular desktop program. For services like Gmail or blogging software, this feature further blurs the line between online and offline software.

Downloading files is really easy. A status button appears at the bottom of your browser window — there’s no Downloads window to get in your way. You click that button to open the downloaded file, without having to worry about what folder it wound up in.

If you believe Google, though, the best stuff is all under the hood. For example, Google chose, as the underlying Web-page processing software, the same existing “rendering engine” inside Apple’s Safari browser.

As a result, Chrome is quick — faster than Internet Explorer, although not quite as fast as Firefox or Safari. Since Chrome came out only Tuesday, I haven’t had time to test it on all 40 billion Web pages on the Internet (I gave up around dinnertime). Very few Web sites gave Chrome problems, though. NBCOlympics.com, for example, failed to recognize Chrome and therefore refused to play its videos, but that will change; nobody ignores Google these days.

Also under the hood are what Google considers some of Chrome’s most important features — the security enhancements. Google says that each tab runs in its own “sandbox,” so that if there’s nasty spyware-type software running on one Web site, it has no access to the rest of your computer, or even the other tabs. Google asserts that this is much stronger protection than Internet Explorer 8 gives you, especially in Windows XP. (Internet Explorer 8 supplies its best protection only in Windows Vista.)

Also in the security category: something called Incognito mode, in which no cookies, passwords or cache files are saved, and the browser’s History list records no trace of your activity. (See also: Safari, Internet Explorer 8.) Google cheerfully suggests that you can use Incognito mode “to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays,” but they’re not fooling anyone; the bloggers call it “porn mode.”

For more of the techie details about Chrome security, Google has created what may be the most innovative feature of all: an utterly charming comic book — yes, comic book — that explains the browser and its features.

Already, speculation is running rampant online. Will Chrome catch on? What about Google’s business relationships with its competitors?

And above all: what is Google up to?

Is it trying to build a platform for running the software of the future, thereby de-emphasizing Windows and other operating systems?

That’s a yes. Google even went to the trouble of rewriting Javascript, the programming language that underlies many such online programs. According to online Javascript speed tests, Google’s version is twice as fast as IE7’s.

Will Google ensure that its own services run better in Chrome than in other browsers? Is this part of Google’s great conspiracy?

That’s a no and a no. Chrome is open-source, meaning that its code is available to everyone for inspection or improvement — even to its rivals. That’s a huge, promising twist that ought to shut up the conspiracy theorists.

For now, it’s best to think of Chrome as exactly what it purports to be: a promising, modern, streamlined, nonbloated, very secure alternative to today’s browsers. You should do exactly what Microsoft, Apple and the Firefox folks will all be doing: try it out and keep your eye on it.

Because every now and then, Google’s fresh approach ends up dominating its once much bigger competitors (See also: AltaVista, Lycos, Ask …)

See the original post here: