I want to roll the clock back a few weeks to the announcement of an initiative by Facebook called – Project Titan.

At the time that I saw it and tweeted about it (of course) it really hadn’t hit me just how important this could be to any business.  What seemed like a pretty basic message about an upgrade message of their current email system which is rather archaic (you know, the one that makes you delete messages one by one!) to a full POP/IMAP supported email account, which means users will be able to configure it with any e-mail client, including Microsoft Outlook, Entourage and Apple’s Mail applications.

But what does that really mean. Well first that means that Facebook will issue 400 Million email account – which is no small feat. Second those email accounts will be tied to your Facebook profile Vanity URL in my case PaulDunay@facebook.com. Third, Facebook says they will enable this feature for Pages (the business version of your Profile). And fourth those Page email addresses will be tied your you Page Vanity URL such as Avaya@Facebook.com (which by the way they significantly lowered the minimum number of the Fans you need to get a Vanity URL from 1000 down to just 25!)

Facebook made its initial announcement of Project Titan to the market on February 5th and was candidly thought to be a Google Gmail killer. So 3 days later on February 8th Google announced Google Buzz! This is clearly an all out war between Facebook and Google. Facebook quietly surpassed Yahoo last yea/> [...]

Thu Mar 04, 2010 08:50 am

According to a recent survey of around 3,000 kids, those who text, blog and use social sites such as Facebook have better writing skills than their less technologically inclined counterparts.

This hardly comes as a surprise to us tech geeks who spent our younger days alternating between writing critical theses on esoteric forums and getting assaulted by grammar Nazis on said forums. Although we may take it for granted that voluminous written communication online builds writing skills, others decry the lack of formality in most tween and teen lexicons. Is "text speak" as much a concern as enhanced writing skills are a benefit?

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Of the children surveyed - a group of 3,001 young people between the ages of 9 and 16 - 24 percent maintained a personal blog and 82 percent regularly sent text messages. Seventy-three percent used IM clients to chat online.

When researchers asked the children to rate their writing skills, 47 percent of those who were non-bloggers and didn't use social networking sites said that their writing skills were good. The online set projected higher levels of confidence; of those who maintained blogs, 61 percent said their writing was good or very good.

Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, told BBC News, "Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing."

He continued to say that online engagement can lead to offline creativity, such as story writing and song composition.

And what about the "LOL OMG c u l8r" informality of text and chat communiqués?

"Our research results are/> [...]

Thu Dec 03, 2009 19:50 pm

Today we had the chance to get inside the head of one of the top entrepreneurs in cloud computing - a guy who also just happens to be an investor at one of the Valley's top firms. Satish Dharmaraj, former founder and CEO of Zimbra, spoke with us about the trends he is looking at in his role at Redpoint Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture firm. Redpoint recently closed a $400 million fund that is focusing on mobile, cloud computing and clean technology.

We wanted to ask Satish where the sweet spot is in cloud computing and share it with you - just in case you're starting a killer cloud venture today.

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'Computing Utility'

To start off, we asked Satish what the cloud is today versus where it was several years ago.

When Amazon put EC2 and S3 out, for the first time you could rent compute and storage power at a moments notice. Elastic on-demand provisioning is what it originally meant when Amazon invented the concept of the cloud.

Now, cloud computing also includes SaaS. It also includes apps that sit on top of the cloud. Additionally, with the invention of the private cloud, large enterprises are able to look at their datacenter with a new focus. The evolution is underway on how to leverage the concept of "computing utility" in the enterprise and run the datacenter as an on-demand cloud for hosting int/> [...]

Tue Feb 16, 2010 18:10 pm

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Google Provides Free Holiday Wi-Fi In Airports

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Google is now a wireless carrier, working with airports across the country to provide free wireless from now through January 15, the company said Tuesday.

Currently, the wireless will be available in 47 airports including: Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Google is working with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others on the initiative.

Google further said it will give network users the option to donate to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. The company said it will match donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice.

Google is also partnering with Virgin America to provide free wireless on every Virgin America flight between Nov/> [...]

Fri Nov 13, 2009 14:40 pm

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