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TIME Magazine launch TechLand

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:06:01 +0000

The folks behind TIME magazine at TIME Inc. have just launched their new technology website dubbed Techland. The new website has many old faces from TIME on its masthead including their Tech editor Lev Grossman who’ll be a regular contributor.

They’ll cover the more ‘user orientated’ area of the market with much of their categories revolving around products and less about news. These categories include Gadgets, Gaming, Culture and Videos.

Overall, it looks like a good website from a reliable bunch however the design is a little sloppy and I’d imagine they’ll be tidying things up a bit as the site grows. The ties with TIME are still evident with many of their information pages such as ‘Contact Us’ leading directly to TIME’s customer services page.

Windows 7 Official Launch Day Today

Steven Finch — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:35:09 +0000

There has been a huge amount of hype around Microsoft and their new Windows 7 operating system, and today is the big launch day! The reactions so far from users and reviewers have been mostly positive and to me it looks like Windows 7 is a great improvement from XP and the huge issue of Vista.

If you’re interested in making the switch, the price is $319 for Windows 7 Ultimate, and $299 for the Professional version ($219 and $199 for the upgrade, respectively). Windows 7 Home Premium will set you back $199, and an upgrade from either Vista or XP will cost you $119.

Apple To Launch iPhone in China End of October

Steven Finch — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:02:16 +0000

Apple (AAPL) will begin selling iPhones in China at the end of this month, company executives said during today’s Q3 earnings call. Apple will be launching with China Unicom and this is going to obviously be a great opportunity for Apple to gain even more market share in the smartphone market.

New details:

Apple will have 1,000 points of sale.
Plans will range in price from $18/month to $100/month.
With higher-priced plans, users will get their iPhones “free.”

Yahoo Twitter Clone: Yahoo Meme Is Now Open To The Public

Steven Finch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:19:23 +0000

Previously here on Crenk we wrote about Yahoo Meme and we were even offering invites to our readers. It has been announced on the site only that Yahoo Meme is now open to the public. There is still no official word from Yahoo about the launch, but make sure you head over to Yahoo Meme and check it out.

Additionally, make sure you follow Crenk on Yahoo Meme.

Spotify To Enter The USA Market Very Soon

Steven Finch — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:58:48 +0000

Spotify has received a lot of press in the last few days cause they are planning to move their European only service into the US market. The story was broken over at Forbes and I think this could be a very big move for the music industry as a whole. Spotify is a free ad supported music streaming service which allows users to listen to anything in their catalogue as often as they want. Spotify offers a free service which is advertising supports, a day of free advertising and then also a full unlimited service. Users can also build and store playlists; so that if you turn on shuffle, after awhile it feels like a Pandora station with only your favorites or the iTunes collection you wish you could afford.

Ive used Spotify since private launch and it is so addictive and one of the best services I have ever used. Their currently library has over 5 million tracks with thousands more uploaded on a daily basis. Spotify has attracted more than 2 million users in the UK and another 4 million across Europe. The company also wants to let you take you playlists with you anywhere you want. An Android app is in beta and an iPhone app is being tested.

Key issues when entering the US market is:

Can they afford the crippling royalty rates that all the majors will want in the US? These rates already killed Spiral Frog and other services.
Microsoft UK executive already leaked that they are readying a launch of a competitive product that will be tied in with the Zune. However, it is Microsoft and they always seem to get new products wrong recently.
The economy needs to turn around because Spotify is 95% ad-supported. “If you look at the market today, who knows where it’s going to be in the next two, three years?”. Spotify founder Daniel Ek told Forbes. “We are doubling our revenues month-on-month–that’s a very good sign.”

Amazon Launches Casual Gaming Download Store

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:01:51 +0000

Amazon has launched on Tuesday a new video game download store. The site itself can be found here. The initial library offers over 600 games which are all under $10. All casual games are currently for the PC platform, but Im sure this will branch out in the near future.

The store allows customers to download and try any game for 30 minutes, after which point they may choose to pay for the full version.

“We have 88 million active customers who can appreciate the convenience of the true amazon shopping experience combined with the casual games experience,” Greg Hart, VP of video games and software at Amazon, told Kotaku.

While the service currently lacks some of the more popular casual games from top publishers, it will look to expand its selection.

Amazon recently acquired casual game developer Reflexive, which counts a library of over 1,000 games.

Jango Launches Music Vertical Advertising Network

Steven Finch — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:42:10 +0000

US music site Jango announced the launch of Jango Music Network (JMN), dubbing it as the world’s largest and most targeted cost-effective ad network for the music vertical.

The current JMN inventory of music sites reach a collective total of 30 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone. JMN also features a unique methodology that maps brand preference to musical taste and uses it to help advertisers target audiences that will be particularly receptive to their brand.

The Battle of the Startup Pages, Which Type of Page Do You Use?

Steven Finch — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:15:00 +0000

I have been wondering for a long time now “what makes a good startup page”? How does an internet user determine what will be their start page and what just doesn’t do it for them? In this article I’m going to run through some of the basic types of startup pages out there today and see what characteristics are good for me and what aren’t.

The first type of startup pages are the ‘add your own modules‘ type of startup pages. About a year and a half ago these types of pages were being developed left right and center, but lately they seem be going into liquidation very fast.

Netvibes - Netvibes is a module based startup page that has been growing from strength to strength recently. They are based in France but have been able to build up traffic worldwide. All modules can be customised in whatever style the user sees fit. Netvibes is the leader in this type of startup page and I every time I head back to their site they seem to have made improvements.

Pageflakes - Pageflakes is a startup page very similar to Netvibes except they don’t have the adoption levels of Netvibes. Pageflakes was acquired by Live Universe about either months ago because they were struggling and running out of liquid funds.

iGoogle - iGoogle is basically the Google version of Netvibes but with the Google search option at the top of the page. iGoogle has very limited themes, but it is simple to integrate with everything Google of course.

These types of startup pages are good for the user because they allow you to place whatever modules you want onto the page, but there is such a thing as information overload. Personally, Im not so sure about these types of sites as startup pages, because they are simply just ugly to look at because everything is a base size module and they just take too long to setup!

The next type of startup pages are the ‘one page aggregators‘. This type of startup page brings together some of the most popular rss feeds from around the internet and puts them all onto one page. Basically it is a rss reader for the lazy.

Popurls - Popurls is the original startup aggregator which brings together some of the best sites in the tech industry. Sites include Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz, Metafilter and more. The site has a very simple layout showing the top 10 from each site. Additionally, they have added videos from Youtube and photos from Flickr.

Alltop - Alltop is a new site from Guy Kawasaki (evangelist at Apple), in which he takes the idea of popurls and spreads it to pretty much every time of market. This is basically an rss reader for every type of industry for the most basic of internet users.

Original Signal – Original Signal used to be one of the leaders in this space, but recently they have been losing market share fast. Original Signal covers mainly tech and business topics, but they have seemed to update the service in many years.

These startup pages are great if you just want to have a quick look at one site in the morning and see what is happening around the world on a specific topic. However, they don’t allow users to choose the rss feeds you want to read, this can be done easily by using an rss reader.

Finally the other type of startup page is the simple search engine and 99% of the time its Google. Personally Google is my startup page but mainly because I find it easier to click the home button at the top and then type in my search, instead of typing it into the top of Firefox. Google as a page is so simplistic and it provide immense functionality behind that basic exterior.

Overall, what makes a good startup page? This is probably a different answer for every single person. However, I do think that startup pages need to be simple, have a good search option and allow the user to customise if they wish. As always simplicity and functionality are the keys.

Wordpress.TV: Your Video Resource Directory For Everything Wordpress

Steven Finch — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:00:25 +0000

WordPress.tv is your visual resource for all things WordPress. To make it easy for you to find up-to-date, WordPress-themed video content within a couple of clicks. Without having to wade through spammy promotional videos, out-of-date content, and missing chunks of presentations. WordPress.tv is there waiting for you, you can learn anything related to WordPress by watching the videos there.

Additional to basic Wordpress tutorials they have a section specifically for WordCamp videos in which is Wordpress related sessions in which professions talk about Wordpress and how to use it affectively and efficiently.

TweetReplies: Send Twitter Replies To Your Email, Browser or RSS

Steven Finch — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:40:37 +0000

Everyday I have about 30 people start following Crenk on Twitter, but today I had a very interesting company show up. Tweetreplies is a new startup which sends twitter replies to your email address. I know there has been a lot of talk about this specific type of Twitter startup in the last week or so, especially with Twply.com. Unlike Twply (which sold for $1200 a few days after launching), Tweetreplies doesn’t require your Twitter username and password to actually operate. There are a lot people out there that have been talking about giving out their Twitter passwords to third party sites, so this is a great way to have a tool and not give up your password.

NewsGator Launches AdBurner. Ad Optimisation Tool for Premium Publishers

Steven Finch — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:18:16 +0000

NewsGator has announced today that they have launched a new product called AdBurner. AdBurner is a program that provides a turnkey advertising based solution for premium publishers, which helps them to optimise ad revenues around key web 2.0 technologies with no incremental effort.

AdBurner is aimed at optimizing the CPM for, and process of, inserting and managing advertising into NewsGator’s publisher products suite, including services as diverse as widgets, related content, and iPhone applications. The initiative is built around best of breed advertising partners Technorati, Admeld, Gigya, Medialets, and Tremor Media.

This is a very interesting moving from NewsGator and Im very keen to test the product for them. Currently, the new product doesnt seem available via their website, so would be great to hear from the NewsGator team.

Amazon Mp3 Store Launches For UK Market

Steven Finch — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:19:48 +0000

Amazon has just launched their Mp3 Music store in the UK. The store can be found at http://mp3.amazon.co.uk. The simple-to-use digital music store offering over 3 million DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) songs which will work on any MP3 player including the iPod™- with top-selling albums from just £3 and individual songs from 59p.

Amazon Mp3 UK has all four major labels signed up, SonyBMG, Universal Music, EMI Music and Warner Music – and leading independents such as Cooking Vinyl, Harmonia Mundi, Beggars Banquet, The Orchard, Concord and IODA.

Greg Greeley, Vice-President of Amazon EU Retail said: “We’re excited to provide our UK customers with more ways to discover and enjoy great music. In addition to the millions of low-priced CDs available in our music store, Amazon MP3 now provides a vast selection of DRM-free albums and songs across every genre you can think of, ready to enjoy in seconds”.

Qtrax Are Going To Get Sued Before Launching

Steven Finch — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:48:44 +0000

Qtrax will be sued before they even launch if they arent careful. Qtrax is a music P2P service that is supposed to have launched a few days ago, but the site is online and no one can download their software. Plus, it has been reported that Qtrax dont have agreements with WMG and EMI when they have specifically announced that they have. So strange!

The LA Times reported that Qtrax has not signed with EMI or Warner Music Group and they are only close to coming to terms with Universal. So why are they going around saying they already have these contracts? I really think this product could be a lost effort even before it launches.

BoingBoing TV Launched

Steven Finch — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:25:39 +0000

Popular blog BoingBoing is launching its own web-based daily tv show. Much like the blog, BoingBoingTV will focus on odd bits from around the Web, but in daily 3-5 minute video segments, five days a week.

The show will be hosted by Xeni Jardin and BoingBoing co-creator Mark Frauenfelder, while other BoingBoing contributors will also host segments.

BoingBoing has inked a three month sponsorship deal with IBM to kick-off the show. You can see the first episode below.

Via: Mashable

Amazon Download Store Finally Open

Steven Finch — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:16:40 +0000

After more than a year of speculation, The Amazon DRM-free download store Â has finally opened with an impressive 2,323,235 mp3’s available from 180,000 artists on 20,000 labels. All tracks are 256 kps mp3’s priced at 89 to 99 cents.

Included are thousands of tracks from Universal (more it appears than are available elsewhere) and virtually the entire EMI catalog including Radiohead and Pink Floyd. Missing are digital hold outs The Beatles and Bob Seger.

Leading independent labels offering their catalog of music for the first time DRM-free include Alligator, HighTone, Madacy, Sanctuary, Rounder, Righteous Babe, Sugar Hill, Trojan and Phillip Glass’ Orange Mountain.

Press Release