Archive by Author - Kim-Mai Cutler

How to sift through Twitter’s noise? MyTweetSense, FriendBinder give it a go

by on December 10, 2009 at 7:15 pm
December 10, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

Now that there are plenty of apps for reading your entire Twitter stream, here comes the hard part. How do you build filters that automatically find the most interesting bits from a stream that can contain more than 100 tweets an hour?

Two apps I’ve taken a look at the Le Web conference in Paris are giving that a shot, taking very different approaches. (more…)

Le Web: Social networking tool Stribe takes top honors in startup competition

by on December 10, 2009 at 7:11 pm

December 10, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

stribeStribe, a tool that helps build a social network around sites, won the top prize at the Le Web start-up competition in Paris today.

The French startup is trying to tackle the difficult problem of building social communities around content on a page, and outside of a social network. It’s a line of code that you add to your site, which creates an overlay that users can log into. They can see the most active users visiting the page and the most popular links people are sharing. (more…)

Le Web: Q & A with Twitter, Square creator Jack Dorsey

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:41 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

dorsey Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter who just launched a new payments startup called Square, is on-stage at the Le Web conference in Paris today. I’m live-blogging as we go:

Loic Le Meur: How did you get the idea for Twitter?

Jack Dorsey: It took a long, long time. When I turned 15 years old, I became fascinated by how cities work. I became obsessed with maps. I taught myself to program to put a map on the screen. I taught myself how to put a map on the screen, and put dots on the map. But they had no meaning whatsoever.

So I found taxis and public databases to provide meaning for the dots. But more importantly, I had this very important picture of what was happening in Manhattan from St. Louis. But what was missing were the citizens.

So I built something in 2000, but no one was using it. And in 2006, I was working at Odeo — it was a Podcasting company with Ev and Biz. We were looking at SMS and how to fit podcasting in group communication. The idea for Twitter came up again, and we had two weeks to build it. So we did. (more…)

Le Web: Jack Dorsey says he’ll give away Square devices for free

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:36 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

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Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and co-founder of a new payments startup called Square, said the company will give away its credit card-swiping devices for free at the Le Web conference in Paris today. (See a Q&A with Dorsey here.) It’s a move that should help overcome the biggest hurdle for the startup, and probably help make its money back if it can take a small share of all payments it manages. (more…)

Google’s real-time search now live in the U.K.

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:33 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

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Google’s newly announced real-time search is now not just limited to the Trends page. It’s now live across searches on Google.co.uk. (I just tried it with “Ethan Beard”, who is director of the Facebook Developer Network and is speaking on stage at Le Web right now.) The search giant announced the new feature on Monday — it pulls in public data from Twitter, MySpace and Facebook and uses it to surface content that’s been recently published and shared. (more…)

Le Web: Facebook Connect now reaches 60 million people on 80,000 sites

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:31 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

ethanbeardFacebook just updated stats on Connect — its effort to bring social functionality to sites and apps across the web. Facebook Connect now reaches 60 million users and 80,000 sites (that’s up from the 15,000 announced earlier this fall.)

“We don’t aspire to be only a web site,” said Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network. “We aspire to be a technology that allows people to connect people with the things they care about.”

Beard gave a few prominent examples of how Connect has helped drive traffic to partners. Huffington Post, which launched Social News earlier this year, got a 500 percent increase in referrals and 50 percent boost to comments and doubled its user base.

Beard also pointed to Facebook’s rapid growth overseas — two years ago, 70 percent of Facebook’s users came from within the U.S. Now 70 percent come from abroad.

Le Web: MySpace opens up its real-time stream of data to developers

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:28 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

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myspaceMySpace launched a real-time stream application programming interface, letting other developers mine its public status updates and shared links for trends and viral content.

That means when MySpace users share links or music videos, that data can show up in other places like on search engine OneRiot, which is a launch partner. Because of MySpace’s focus on music, its data could probably be used to find emerging artists or new music videos. MySpace COO Mike Jones says the site handles about 46 million updates every day. Some obvious applications could be ultra-refined ‘Top 40′ charts for very specific genres of music or for bands in specific cities. (more…)

Le Web: Twitter releases data firehose to everyone, now has 50,000 apps

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:24 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

rsarverTwitter said it’s opening up its data stream of tweets to all developers, not just Bing and Google. Ryan Sarver, who is on the platform team at Twitter, said details will be hashed out later next year.

Sarver said Twitter’s business model will be to drive and split revenue with the ecosystem of developers that have built applications around it. (more…)

Le Web: Q&A with Google VP Marissa Mayer on the future of search

by on December 9, 2009 at 7:19 pm
December 9, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

mayerMarissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience is on-stage at the Le Web conference in Paris. I’m live-blogging as we go:

Michael Arrington asks about the search announcements earlier this week (namely Google Goggles, local search and real-time search). (more…)

Pearltrees: A visual social bookmarking tool that has its own take on PageRank

by on December 7, 2009 at 7:44 pm
December 7, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler

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If you’re the type of obsessive-compulsive person who needs to organize the firehose of information confronting you every day on the web, then Pearltrees might work for you. It’s a visual social bookmarking service that allows you keep track of what you’ve read and establish relationships between different pieces of content. (more…)