Trends 2.0

Techcrunch: ICANN To Expand Top-Level Domain Names, Applications Start Jan 12, 2012 20. June 2011

The ICANN board has voted to approve the new gTLD program, which was first announced three years ago. The new program will significantly expand Top-Level Domains (TLDs) to allow companies, organizations and even cities to turn their own brands into domain name extensions. Think .ADIDAS, .HOTEL, .BRUSSELS, .FACEBOOK and the likes.

Applications for new gTLDs will be accepted from 12 January 2012 to 12 April 2012.

The first ones should be operational by late 2013 according to the current roadmap.

ICANN board members voted 13 for, 1 opposed, 2 abstain on the first day of its international pow-wow in Singapore. Earlier this year, the organization’s board entered into a contract with ICM Registry to operate a .XXX top level domain name for adult websites and whatnot.

Currently, there are 22 generic top-level domains, including .com, .org and .net.

via ICANN To Expand Top-Level Domain Names, Applications Start Jan 12, 2012.

Duke Nukem´s PR-agency fired – gagging Web 2.0 as mission impossible 18. June 2011

After many, many years the new “Duke Nukem” was launched – and many critiques were really desastrous. So the head of the Redner Group twittered very angry:

But Web 2.0 doesn´t like gagging. It was a real avalanche of angry reactions from users followed by a real intense media storm. Redner apologized: “I used a public forum to voice my complaints and I know better. I poured my soul into the project and when I read the review I felt like a father trying to protect his son. In hindsight, I should have approached the writer directly.”

But too late: Quickly following the media storm today, 2K issued a statement: “2K Games does not endorse or condone the comments made by @TheRednerGroup and confirm they no longer represent our products. We maintain a mutually respectful relationship with the press and will continue to do so. We don’t condone@TheRednerGroup’s actions at all.”

Censorship is a mission impossible in the age of “Web 2.0″. Lesson learned?

Redner Group Loses Biggest Client Over Tweet | Digital – Advertising Age.

CNET: Twitter Tor Start photosharing service 31. May 2011

It looks like  Twitter’s recent app expansion effort might just be getting started.  The microblogging site is getting ready to announce its own photo-sharing service this week, according to a TechCrunch report that cited multiple anonymous sources.  Twitter users can already share photos on their Twitter streams via Twitpic and Yfrog, but as the report noted, a built-in service would have a significant advantage over competing apps.

Inside Facebook: Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events 18. May 2011

Facebook users can now check in to Facebook Events they’re currently attending through the touch.facebook.com site and soon through the Facebook for iPhone app. When users are in geographic proximity to the address of an Event during its run-time, they’ll see a “Check In” button that publishes a news feed story to their friends stating “[Name] is at [Event].” Users will no longer have to create a new Places page or add the name of an Event to a checkin’s description when they want to tell friends they’re at a specific party, concert, or other gathering.

via Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone.

Daily Beast: Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear Attempt on Google 12. May 2011

The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast’s Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war.

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

via Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear Attempt on Google – The Daily Beast.

All Facebook: Do Facebook Political Ads Need To Disclose Funding? 10. May 2011

Facebook’s political advertisements don’t have enough room to include disclosures of who paid for the ad, right?

That’s the gist of a 14-page letter that attorneys representing Facebook sent to the Federal Elections Commission, six days after President Barack Obama visited company headquarters to host a Town Hall.

Three attorneys from Perkins Coie represented Facebook in seeking this clarification from FEC Acting General Counsel Christopher Hughey and six of his associates.

Facebook argues that having to include the disclosures would disrupt the format of the site.

via Do Facebook Political Ads Need To Disclose Funding?.

Suggest Facebook Pages Returns For Some 18. March 2011

Facebook has quietly and selectively restored the ability for administrators to suggest pages to friends.

Some administrators don’t have the ability to suggest their pages to friends; we wonder whether the “haves” and “have-nots” are a test group and a control group for Facebook to study whether to permanently reinstate the feature for all admins.

The feature now has a different look than the previous version of suggest to friends. The new one incorporates the same icon that shows pending friend requests, next to the notifications icon in the blue bar at the top of the screen. That same image also appears beneath the main profile photo, linking to the person’s friend list.

When Facebook took away administrators’ ability to suggest pages to friends in November, the same feature also disappeared for visitors to the page — and the latter hasn’t returned at all with the selective reinstatement of page suggestions.

If in fact the selective reinstatement of page suggestions is a test, and Facebook decides to fully reinstate the feature based on the results, it’s possible that page visitors might see a return of the suggestion option as well.

via Suggest Facebook Pages Returns For Some.

Foursquare’s Google Moment: Recommendations Launch Tonight 9. March 2011

The race between tech companies aiming to tell you what to do with your free time will heat up tonight with the midnight launch of version 3.0 of location based social network Foursquare. According to the company, its long awaited recommendations feature will be included.

It’s one thing for Amazon or Netflix to recommend movies or other products you might like (that’s a huge business), it’s another thing for an automated system to tell you where you should go when you walk out the door of your house; what real-world venues you should patronize. That’s something a whole lot of companies are going to try to tackle, including Google and Facebook.

The Enormity of Real-World Recommendations

Inside every “where should I go?” question there are other big questions, like: What should I eat? What should I buy? What should I do with my leisure time plus expendable income? What should I do with my life? Foursquare would love to be a service that regularly answers those questions for millions of people.

It’s a very ambitious goal. It’s reminiscent of the question Google has answered, “What web page should I look at for information about my interest?” As big as the web is, though – the offline world is bigger, richer and can be more interesting. Win at recommendations offline and your web application has really done something big.

Real-world place recommendations are higher risk (in terms of expense to the user who makes a purchase, the effort required and maybe social cost) but also much higher reward (in terms of lived experience gained and potential commercial activity) than online shopping or media consumption are. Can Foursquare get recommendations right and capture some of this huge potential?

via Foursquare’s Google Moment: Recommendations Launch Tonight.

Mashable: Facebook ‘Like’ Button Takes Over Share Button Functionality 27. February 2011

Say goodbye to the Share button because the Like button is taking over.

After months of updates to the functionality and design of its Like button, Facebook released an update that fundamentally changes the button’s functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall. You’ll also be given an option to comment on the story link. Previously, only a link to the story would appear in the recent activity, often going unnoticed by users.

via Facebook ‘Like’ Button Takes Over Share Button Functionality.

Museveni’s Use Of Social Media To Keep Power In Uganda | The New Republic 25. February 2011

In Ugandasomething entirely different happened. Instead of “the people” harnessing the power of technology for the purposes of reform or change, it was the regime that deployed those tools to greatest effect. Arguably, one of the biggest breakout stories of the election was the recording of a wildly popular rap single by President Museveni himself, done with the assistance of local music producers to appeal to youth voters. MP3s of Museveni’s single, dubbed “You Want Another Rap,” went viral in late October, spreading like wildfire over e-mail and Facebook before quickly migrating to the country’s airwaves and into the nightclubs in the capital city of Kampala. Within a few weeks, Museveni’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, was applying for copyrights of the song and inking deals with one of Uganda’s main telecom carriers to create a ringtone. (As one man told a local newspaper in November, “This chain reaction makes me feel sorry for those standing against Sevo [Museveni] in the race for president. They should be scared because with the rap that has swept almost every young person, vote Museveni victory is bound to be a landslide.”)

via Museveni’s Use Of Social Media To Keep Power In Uganda | The New Republic.