When Microsoft launched its mobile app store last month, Windows Marketplace for Mobile was only available for Windows phones running operating system 6.5. Although highly anticipated among users, the execution of the app store nevertheless put Microsoft on wobbly competitive footing. Here was Microsoft, a year and a half behind Apple on producing an app store, and just as it was gathering together its answer to its rival, it had already dropped a boulder on its big toe by limiting its storefront to its brand new operating system.
Thankfully, Redmond seems to have recovered, and on Monday, Microsoft opened up its Marketplace app to more Windows phones. If yours runs version 6.0 or 6.1 of the operating system, you can now download the free Marketplace application by sending yourself a link from Microsoft's Web site.
Microsoft boasts approving over 800 applications for Windows Marketplace for Mobile as of November 16, a little over a month after launching the digital storefront. But the figure pales in comparison to Apple's announcement of its 100,000 app milestone just two weeks before. Microsoft's has some serious work to do if it wants to attract more developers and and attempt to reach Apple's benchmark. Making the Marketplace available to more users is a necessary first step.
Perhaps in a sign of how the plague of social media has numbed us all to the value of legitimate human connections, the New Oxford American Dictionary has picked the verb "unfriend," or "to remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook," as its 2009 Word of the Year.
At the very least, it's a testament to the ubiquity of Facebook, which now has well over 300 million members around the world.
Facebook itself takes the process of "friending" and "unfriending" very seriously. It once blocked a third-party game called PackRat because it encouraged players to amass huge friends lists (good heavens! they're polluting the social graph!), banned a Burger King ad campaign that let members "sacrifice" their friends to get a free cheeseburger ("Friendship is strong, but the Whopper is stronger"), and still puts a cap of 5,000 on personal profiles' friends lists.
Last year's Oxford word of the year was the decidedly less mainstream "hypermiling."
eBay Motors founder Simon Rothman announced on Monday that he has officially launched a new e-commerce site, Glyde.
According to the press release, Glyde's goal "is to democratize e-commerce." The site was born out of Rothman's desire to make it easier for Web users to buy and sell products online.
But Glyde throws in a twist. The site's marketplace is designed for Web users to sell used goods. They can sell books, CDs, DVDs, and video games.
"The average American household has $3,000 worth of unwanted media collecting dust," Rothman said in a statement. "We built a service that makes buying and selling a used DVD as simple as trading a share of Disney stock. It's the NASDAQ for physical goods."
It's an interesting take on what Glyde is all about. But after using the site for awhile, I would agree that it does make it extremely easy to buy and sell goods.
Glyde lets you search for DVDs, CDs, Games, or books.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Glyde's design is extremely simple. If you decide you want to buy some products, you can flip through the listing of available inventory, pick what you want, and learn more about it by clicking on it without much trouble. Unlike sites like Amazon or eBay, which deliver you to a product's individual page listing, Glyde displays the listing over the search results. When you're done looking at it, simply click the "X" at the top right of the panel and you'll be returned to your spot in the results.
Placed prominently on all product pages is a "Buy Now" button. Users have the option of buying a used copy of the product from a seller or a new copy.
Glyde shows off a product listing.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Glyde's buying process isn't all that unique. It's standard fare. And even though it offers discounted pricing, I just don't think it competes well against Amazon's Marketplace or eBay. Those sites have far more products, competitive pricing, and simpler checkout processes. Unless Glyde can improve upon that, it might have a problem.
But it's Glyde's selling side that will probably appeal most to users. The site makes it incredibly simple to sell products. Users need only to list the product, set a sales price, and wait for someone to buy. Once they do, Glyde sends them a prestamped, preaddressed mailer. Sellers need to insert the item they're selling into the mailer and place it in their mailbox. Once the buyer receives the product, the funds are deposited into the seller's account, less the cost of the mailer and Glyde's fee, which is 10 percent of the sales price.
Even better, those selling products on Glyde can opt for the proceeds to go to the charity of their choice. It's a nice option.
Glyde provides a simple, efficient e-commerce solution. But by taking on giants eBay and Amazon in the used-goods market, it will be difficult for the company to stay relevant and capture significant market share.
Yahoo Messenger 10 beta is no more. At least not the "beta" part. This week, Yahoo gave the version 10 beta its stamp of approval, pulling away the "beta" marker and replacing Yahoo Messenger 9 with Yahoo Messenger 10 on Yahoo's download page.
For those using version 9 or below, Yahoo Messenger 10 adds a slew of design enhancements that draw out the chat app's social-networking side and video calls. If you're already using Yahoo Messenger 10 beta, you should be prompted to download a fresh version of Yahoo Messenger 10, but you won't see new goodies pop up since the beta was first introduced last August.
Check out screenshots of the Yahoo Messenger 10 features in this gallery before you download--the images are for the 10 beta, but they still apply. Pay close attention to our installation advice before you download; choose "Custom," not the default, if you'd rather avoid all of Yahoo's installation "perks," like the Yahoo Toolbar.
If you're not ready to make the jump, there's no hurry yet. Yahoo will currently continue to support Yahoo Messenger 9.
Here's a topic I never thought I'd write about: Dolly Parton, the famed country singer, has endorsed Internet Explorer 8 and its Web Slices feature on YouTube.
During a minute-long video, Parton says she "wouldn't know a gigabyte from a snake bite. But the folks over at Microsoft sure know their computers." She goes on to say Microsoft checked out her "new" Web site and "turned us on to a little thing they call Web Slices."
According to a Microsoft representative, the software giant showed Parton's Web team "the new features in IE 8 and Silverlight, and they liked it so much, they wanted to implement it on their site."
Parton's site now features a three-tab Web Slice that includes her video diary, news on her career, and the option to buy some of her music. The Microsoft representative said in an e-mail that the software company "wasn't involved in the production or scripting" of Parton's Internet Explorer 8 endorsement.
Web Slices, which is available only in IE 8, enables users to keep up with sites they check often, such as ones for Web mail or weather reports. According to Microsoft, "if a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the Command Bar." Users can simply click on that icon to subscribe to that page's Web Slice. Once complete, that Web Slice will be displayed in the user's Favorites Bar to make it easier to keep track of those sites the user often visits.
But the very fact that Parton (a portion of whose site is now available as a Web Slice, by the way), would endorse Internet Explorer 8 is a bit surprising. As she points out in the video, she "didn't even know there [were IE versions] 1 through 7."
Regardless, Parton seems to have found her stride. After all, like the singer says, maybe Internet Explorer 8 really is "just like your own little slice of heaven."
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
With just two weeks to go before Black Friday, online-coupon site FatWallet announced on Friday that it has launched a Black Friday page where Web users can track all the latest deals for the big shopping day.
Currently, the site lists all the latest Black Friday ads that have surfaced, as well as news and rumors surrounding the day. It also has information on Cyber Monday, the Web's big shopping day, which falls on the Monday after Black Friday.
Of course, FatWallet isn't alone in this space. Several companies, including BlackFriday.Info and DealTaker to name a few, are displaying Black Friday deals. Each site lists many of the same ads. A few of the resources provide updated news. FatWallet happens to be one of them.
If you're interested in finding Black Friday deals, check out our recent roundup of online resources that prepare you for Black Friday.
Google has updated the stable build of its Chrome browser with two fixes. Google Chrome 3.0.195.33 plugs a security hole that could have allowed a malicious Web site to set custom HTTP headers on cross-origin options requests. A second bug fixed in version 3.0.195.33 removes a dependency on a Windows library file that was not actually required by Chrome. Earlier versions of Chrome would fail silently if that DLL file was missing or rights-restricted.
The Google Chrome developer's channel also updated Friday. Kiosk mode has been activated on all platforms, although the status bar-hiding feature that also sets the full-screen mode as the default doesn't work yet for Macs. However, numerous other fixes were implemented for the Mac version. These include a "bookmark all tabs" feature, keyboard hot key fixes, and a fix that stops PDF files from being opened by QuickTime.
The developer's build of Google Chrome is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The changelog for the stable build is available here, and the changelog for the developer's build is here.
The next time you search Google for life expectancies or number of Internet users in the U.S., you'll find the specific figures plus an interactive chart letting you compare the U.S. with other countries.
Since Wednesday, Google has been tapping into data from the World Bank to provide key details and interactive charts on specific topics along with its own search results. The goal is to better help you search for and compare certain types of public data.
The World Bank is providing Google with facts and figures on 17 key indicators, including population growth, fertility rate, gross national product, and energy use.
Enter one of the 17 indicators into a Google search. You can phrase it as the specific indicator, for example, "population world," or type it as a natural question: "What is the population of the world?"
At the top of the search results, you'll find a thumbnail chart along with the latest statistics. (According to the World Bank, 72.4 percent of the U.S. population is on the Internet as of 2008.) Click on the chart or accompanying link, and up pops a larger interactive graph where you can visually compare the U.S. with other countries by clicking on their check boxes.
(Credit:
Google)
You can embed the chart's HTML in your own blog or Web page and opt for the data to be updated automatically anytime the World Bank's information changes. Finally, a link for more info brings you directly to the World Bank's Web site where you can dig further into the results of your search.
This latest partnership with World Bank is part of Google's effort to offer data beyond that which it can grab from your average Web page. Back in April, the search giant started integrating stats and charts from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the World Bank is the first source to provide global data for Google. The World Bank's figures come from its World Development Indicators (WDI), a collection of data derived from its own research and that of 30 other sources. The global data includes statistics on social, financial, and environmental areas encompassing more than 100 different countries.
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Apple quietly launched a new preview service this week that makes it easier for users to view its iTunes music library from the browser.
Dubbed iTunes Preview, the new feature allows visitors to view iTunes content from their browser without being forced to launch iTunes. Previously, when a Web user received an iTunes link, they needed to open iTunes to view its content.
As part of the launch, Apple has updated links in iTunes to redirect to iTunes Preview. When a user copies a link in the software and pastes it into the browser, they will be brought to the song's individual listing on Apple's Web site. The feature is especially handy for those who don't use iTunes, since they can now view an individual song without being forced to download the software.
Aside from individual music listings, iTunes Preview also allows users to sift through artists and albums based on genre. Each individual listing displays all the songs in an album, the album art associated with it, its cost, and other content typically found in the iTunes store. The page also includes a link to the iTunes store in case the viewer wants to buy it. That said, there aren't any song previews in iTunes Preview; users will still need to go to iTunes to hear them.
iTunes Preview in action.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)For now, iTunes Preview features music. There's no telling if Apple will add more content over time. If you want to check it out, copy an iTunes link from within the software and paste it into your browser.
(Via AppleInsider)
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Google has a new VOIP client to help improve Google Voice.
(Credit: Gizmo5)Google confirmed its intention to acquire Gizmo5, an Internet telephony company, with plans to merge the group into the Google Voice team.
The pending acquisition had been reported earlier in the week by Techcrunch but was overshadowed by the announcement of Google's third-largest acquisition to date--the $750 million AdMob deal--on the same day. Late Thursday Google confirmed that it had acquired the company, although financial terms of this deal were not disclosed.
Gizmo5 is a Web-based VoIP client that lets you make phone calls over the Internet, similar to programs like Skype. It's based, however, on an open standard called SIP that fits a little better into Google's worldview, rather than Skype's internally-developed system.
Gizmo5 works on both PCs and mobile phones, and the technology will likely be used in some way to enhance Google Voice. Google Voice isn't a VoIP client; it lets you use a single number to ring multiple phones and get voice mails transcribed into e-mail, but it does that over existing phone networks.
As Google figures out exactly what it wants to do with Gizmo5, it is suspending new sign-ups for the service, but current users will still be able use it.
