apps

Zuckerberg: Be patient, we're opening up

LONDON--These are tough times for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The economy is in the tank, Madison Avenue still doesn't have full faith in the social network's ability to generate ad revenue, and entertainment-industry analysts estimate that in a few years the 24-year-old CEO could be in danger of losing his title of "world's youngest billionaire" to pop singer Miley Cyrus.

But Zuckerberg lucked out on Friday with his keynote "fireside chat" at the Future of Web Apps conference. Interviewed onstage by conference organizer Ryan Carson, Zuckerberg wasn't subject to any particularly difficult … Read more

Facebook's Morin calls on developers to Connect

LONDON--A lot of hands in the audience went up at the Future of Web Apps conference when Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin kicked off his talk at the conference with the question "How many people have built something on Facebook Platform before?"

Fewer went up when Morin then asked the crowd how many had used Facebook Connect, the company's new data-portability initiative. It's live now, he said.

Facebook unveiled Facebook Connect in May amid a flurry of other companies' data-portability announcements, like Google's Friend Connect and MySpace's Data Availability, which has partners like … Read more

Getting global with Digg's Kevin Rose, part 2

LONDON--In the first part of our interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose at the Future of Web Apps conference, CNET News asked the Web start-up poster boy about everything from the company's Series C funding round to whether he's concerned about when those election stories stop rolling in.

In part 2, Rose got a little more specific: What would happen if Digg got hit with a stock-plunging news hoax? Will he be making acquisitions? And most importantly, does "digg" mean anything dirty in any foreign languages?

CNN had that big debacle with a user-submitted story, about … Read more

Ben Huh can has successful business model?

LONDON--On Thursday afternoon at the Future of Web Apps conference, I had to make a choice: Was I going to blog about a talk hosted by Six Apart engineer David Recordon, talking about the "open social Web," or a talk by Ben Huh, the "Chief Cheezburger" of goofy "lolcat" meme site ICanHasCheezburger.com?

Recordon's talk would invariably be an insightful look into issues like OpenID and OpenSocial, which have faded from the headlines in recent months but are still a hot topic in the developer community. But the talk could prove to be … Read more

Social-ad firm Appssavvy raises $3.1 million

Appssavvy, a start-up that connects advertisers looking for "social media" campaigns with developers and firms that will build widgets for them or get their ads on existing apps, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $3.1 million in Series A venture funding. The round was led by True Ventures, with previous investor Scott Kurnit, founder of About.com, also participating.

Earlier this month, Appssavvy struck a deal with NBC Universal, making it "the exclusive advertising-sales team for the NBC News iCue social-media application."

"Social media has the potential to connect marketers with consumers in … Read more

Hands on with Audi's updated A4 iPhone app

Senior Editor Wayne Cunningham reported earlier on Audi's A4 iPhone app and found that instead of being an innovative way to interface with your vehicle via iPhone, it was merely a game designed to market the newly updated A4 sedan. Recently, Audi updated the app with two new unlockable vehicles and some tweaks to the controls. Having recently purchased an iPod Touch, I decided to take Audi's app for a spin.

The Audi A4 Driving Challenge 2.0, which is a free download from the iTunes App Store, is played by holding the iPhone in landscape orientation. Thumbs … Read more

iPhone apps of the week

It appears that sometimes wishes really do come true. Last week I talked about iGolf, hoping that Version 2.0 would include some sort of course to play through. Apparently this was already in the works. With Version 2.0 you can now play through three holes in addition to hitting for distance at the driving range. It still needs some work (putting requires you to perform a full swing making it less-than-ideal), but adding the three playable holes is a nice touch. I should point out that if you don't have a good grip while playing you may … Read more

iTunes 8.0.1 Released: App Store Update Checking Fixes

Apple has released iTunes 8.0.1, a significant update to the media playback/purchase, and device synchronization tool.

Among the enhancements in this release:

Seamlessly plays the current song when creating a new Genius playlist. Improves syncing spoken menus to iPod nano. Addresses an issue of deleting HD TV episodes when downloading. Improves checking for updates from the App Store Improves accessibility with VoiceOver. Addresses problems syncing Genius results to iPod.

The new release is available through Software Update or Apple's iTunes page.

If you have problems after applying the update, please let us know.

Microsoft plugs the dike against a Google Apps flood...for now

If you haven't read CIO.com's account of Microsoft's frantic attempts to keep Procter and Gamble from using Google Apps, read it now. As I reported last year, I've personally seen very large companies kicking off large pilots of Google Apps to wean themselves off Microsoft, but I've yet to see such a dramatic response from Microsoft.

Microsoft is blase about Google Apps in public, just as it used to be about open source, but incidents like P&G are making the software giant realize that it has a serious problem on its hands.… Read more