Crossed Wire(les)s

Newsvine: Some of the news that’s fit to print, along with some other stuff

mcpaoni — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 19:25:08 +0000

Newsvine, a news-aggregation and commentary site, opened to public access a few days ago and has received more than one favorable review among the blogging punditry. I have poked around the site myself, and I have a few impressions:

While many have compared Newsvine to Google News (in terms of the availability of news from “bona fide” sources) Newsvine’s only source for the time being appears to be the Associated Press wires, while Google News draws on sources across the array of news media published online.
The second of Newsvine’s three content sources—stories “seeded” by registered users—is similar to Digg and other news-aggregation sites “controlled” by their users, but the number of visible seeded stories is somewhat limited (25-100), and one cannot easily discern how those stories are placed or ordered.
The most innovative of Newsvine’s content—columns authored by users—appears to be the most promising. But again, how does a user locate all available comumnists? And how are they placed or ordered on the site if they’re not being specifically searched for?

While I may not be as enthusiastic others about Newsvine, the service yet has time to grow and evolve—and of course, its content base will be heavily dependent upon the contributions of its users. I will not give up on this site just yet; in fact, I’m trying it out as a registered user (http://mcpaoni.newsvine.com). Check it out for my links to and commentaries on stories that may not make their way into my blogs.

Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to use MyYearbook (a/k/a What’s the name of my child’s school, again?)

mcpaoni — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 18:00:30 +0000

Yesterday, Om discussed the emergence of MyYearbook as a viable competitor in the bid to unseat MySpace as the reigning champion of social networking websites. MySpace has received a measurable amount of negative press recently, primarily related to the safety concerns stemming from allowing minors to post a substantial amount of personal information that can be accessed by unsavory characters. But lest parents consider MyYearbook to be the clean, wholesome alternative to MySpace that perhaps some wish it were, take a look at MyYearbook’s tour. Here is a sample screenshot from that tour:

You want low prices? Sorry…did you say, mobile TV and ads on cellphones?

mcpaoni — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 02:08:47 +0000

Om Malik reported yesterday the results of two surveys conducted by RBC Capital Markets concerning consumer desires for viewing television and advertisements on cellphones. The disconnect was obvious: While the majority of surveyed industry pros believed that cellular customers desired both, the majority of surveyed consumers desired neither (but would tolerate the latter if doing so lowered their bills).

A continuing desire simply to talk on cellphones—and to talk cheaply—must have carriers concerned. Verizon and Sprint have rolled out multimedia services on expensively-upgraded networks, and accessing them requires purchasing a fancy (read: costly) new handset. Cingular is projected to follow suit, and a bevy of MVNOs is launching with business plans that promise attracting a customer base through the futuristic availability of content. But if most cellphone customers remain primarily interested in the most minutes for the lowest price—talking on the best handset for the lowest price—I wonder how successfully the advent of true 3G cellular service in the U.S. will play out.

(Another example: The latest issue of The Economist revealed how Americans finally have embraced text messaging, a cellular feature that many throughout the world long ago came to love. While the article focused on youth penetration and carrier cooperation as the prime factors behind this trend, I suspect the importance of a third, unmentioned factor: how carriers increasingly are offering reasonably-priced bundles of unlimited/in-network messages.)