Additionally, Gdgt is rumoured to be in talks with Cnet who want to acquire the company. There were no details on the numbers and founders declined to comment.

Gdgt is a great technology product database and its great to see them growing nicely.

p.s. It also helps if your founders also founded Engadget.. the largest gadget site on the web!

• i Life Solutions: Best In Home Personalised Theatre – February 9, 2012
• Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 Mobile Phones Coming Next Week – October 24, 2011
• Wowee One Slim Review – October 17, 2011
• iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Already Over 1 Million – October 10, 2011
• Tesla Coil Playing Music – September 19, 2011

Gdgt Sign Deal with Engadget and in Acquisition Talks with Cnet originally appeared on: Crenk
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Gamestop seem to be a company jumping all over the place at the moment. Gamestop has noticed that no one seems to be buying games from your basic game shops, thus they are trying to find other revenue streams. Last week it was leaked that they are working on a Steam competitor and now it has been announced they are working on their own Android gaming tablet! Really.. a Gamestop gaming tablet! No one is going buy that surely.

via CNET

• Amazing Launch Coloured Kindle Tablet: Fire – September 28, 2011
• iPhone 5 and Google Nexus 3 To Be Available to Buy in September – August 11, 2011
• Blackberry Playbook Has Some Amazing Sales Numbers – May 23, 2011
• Dell Streak 7 Tablet Available to Buy in the UK Today – April 28, 2011
• Ex-Engadget Editor Josh Topolsky and PC Mag’s Lance Ulanoff Discuss iOS vs Android – April 7, 2011

GameStop With Android Tablet Ambitions originally appeared on: Crenk
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Basically, it’s a constantly updated database of laptops currently available to me and you. You go through its interactive list ticking off requirements for your new pride and joy such as operating system, memory, screen size and other jargon.

Then, after less than five minutes of putting in your needs and desires for a new laptop the system returns a list of laptops with prices defines to what you want. It also allows you to “check prices”. This feature, when used lets you compare prices between top retailers where the computer is available both online and offline such as Amazon.

So for example, as a work laptop I put in medium needs with less of an emphasis on performance as I won’t exactly be streaming HD films from the net. I got a few good models with the pick of the litter being a HP Compaq Business Laptop. A great laptop for a good price of $694 at the California Computer Store. Spot on.

• Musikki: New Musician Directory / Search Engine – January 28, 2012
• Gdgt Sign Deal with Engadget and in Acquisition Talks with Cnet – October 25, 2011
• Space Invader Playing Cards – September 27, 2011
• GameStop With Android Tablet Ambitions – September 13, 2011
• Create Your Own Search Engine With Yioop – August 31, 2011

Cnet’s Laptop Finder originally appeared on: Crenk
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Grooveshark awarded CNET's Top 100 Webware Award

the application, though it had some good aspects, I just did not feel comfortable with the entire package. It was not long after that post that officials from Grooveshark contacted me for a dialogue encouraging me to take a look at the offerings again, highlighting features I had not really seen the first time around. In the year that I’ve had with Grooveshark, I’m impressed with the continued efforts it’s making to establish itself as a viable music service for users.

CNET was obviously impressed enough to award it the 2009 Webware Winner for Audio and Music. Grooveshark has indeed come a long way and its user base has grown significantly. With this announcement comes features that again make Grooveshark heads above the rest. For starters their partnership with Ping.fm to build Tinysong API, which allows users to take the code and develop webapps that provide access to Groovesharks extensive library of music. It will be interesting to see what developers come up with as we’ve seen with various other online applications, the opening of the API makes it easy for supplementary apps to proliferate the net.

The second feature that was announced deals specifically with the blogging community. Grooveshark has announced that is now has a WordPress plugin that allows integration into blog posts for users to set up their favorite songs for specific posts. You can set up just one song, or a playlist of songs for your readers on your site. An interesting option, at the very least you could create a small station of songs on your, possibly with a widget.

Grooveshark is definitely expanding its platform and appeal, and it should be interesting to see how much further they go in 2009!

• Facebook is the most used URL in Twitter Profiles – December 5, 2010
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• WordPress 3.0 with over 6 Million Downloads – July 12, 2010
• Protect your Blog with VaultPress – April 11, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010

Music Provider GrooveShark Wins Top CNET Award originally appeared on: Crenk
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It was a week ago today, that Pownce lost it’s bounce. Co-founders Leah Culver and Mike Malone took their team with them to work with the company that acquired Pownce, Six Apart, on a new micro-blogging platform called Motion.

Pownce launched with wild-acclaim, supported by the founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, it seemed to have all the necessary features to put it toe to toe with Twitter, photo and video sharing, status updates and a delightful interface. It just never really took off, despite being more stable than Twitter.

What does this mean for other micro-blogging sites?

Twitter, the biggest micro-blogging site thus far, recently shook off a $500 million offer from Facebook. And rightly so. As pointed out by Cnet’s Rafe Needleman, “…when it comes to business philosophies, the companies do not mesh. And I’m not just talking about the well-reported SMS expense that Facebook would take on if it integrated Twitter. More than that, Twitter’s stated revenue plans don’t work for Facebook.”

Twitter, one imagines, see themselves as fighting in the same field as Facebook, but on the other side of the fence. They are competitors, but not competitive.

The likes of Tumblr and YouAre are the main rivals to Twitter’s crown. How will these guys possibly stand up to fight with a company that can brush off a bid of half a billion dollars?

The key thing is to offer user friendly tools, such as sharing photos and videos, which Twitter just doesn’t do at the moment, unless you’re a fan of the tinyurl. Secondly it’s important to make it easy to sign up (box ticked) and to make it easy to encourage your friends to sign up and be a part of the action.

My problem with a lot of the newer micro-blogging services is that they’re falling into the trap of being too customisable. Look at Facebook’s wide ranging apps – how many are actually useful in our day to day lives and make a difference to the way we communicate? Very few. Similarly with Bebo and Myspace – the integration of new and exciting things to put on your page is exciting for a moment, but nothing more.

If Twitter is to be ousted, or at least equalled, competitors will need to find niches that they can cling on to and exploit. I see Tumblr as being a brilliant way to share photos for example – the message boxes are just large enough for a high definition image to be shown clearly, but not at a size that will set your PC into meltdown.

It is this specialisation that will see each service acquire a following and then grow as that group develops a culture unique to them. All these different cultures will eventually begin to intermingle as users being to find each service useful for different things and then telling their friends to join them on xyz.

It comes down to talent in the end however. Six Apart will have known all along that they were really just after the Pownce team, and not their name or platform. The biggest challenge facing all of the micro-blogging services will be to hold onto their key staff, thinkers and doers alike.

Social Networking, at the moment, is a philosophy that is becoming increasingly tangible, but not ingrained in mainstream culture as Facebook currently is, yet.

• Facebook Connect Battles For Your Information – December 1, 2008
• Revision3 Ends Diggnation – October 4, 2011
• Kevin Rose Leaves Digg to Pursue Other Startups – March 21, 2011
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011
• How to Add a Sidebar with Facebook, Twitter, Delicio.us and Digg – October 31, 2010

Pownce-ing On The Opposition originally appeared on: Crenk
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