Archive for September, 2010

Secretly Remove Exes from Your Social Networks

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

One blogger put it this way:

“Very few of you think de-friending an ex on Facebook is a good idea. Sometimes doing nothing at all — not talking, not de-friending — sends the clearest message of all. But what if you’re tormented by his [or her] Facebook photos, cryptic Twitter updates, and blog posts?”  What if you’re being cyber-stalked by your ex and you don’t like it?

That’s where Block Your Ex comes in. It does what sheer will power cannot — with an ex-blocking tool that’s specially designed to, as another blogger said, “extract even the most stubborn evidence of past relationships gone bad from an otherwise pristine online existence,” and with internet speed

Designed by a Washington, DC creative agency called JESS3, the Ex-Blocker needs only for you to fill in the offending ex’s name along with his or her Twitter identity, Facebook page and blog URL. From there, the tool wipes that person right out of the user’s online life. More than 8,026 exes are currently being blocked thanks to the tool.

You can enter up to five people’s identities that you’d never like to hear again, and it will remove every image and mention of them from your online life. For-ev-er. (Or until you get back together and/or want to change the settings.)

The best part? You’ll still appear to be their friends and followers, so they will never know! 

Once that’s all sorted out…women can visit ExBoyfriendJewelry.com, where their motto is “You don’t want it. He can’t have it back” to profit from the pain and unburden themselves emotionally too.  And then visit Pink Kisses.com which, Springwise tells us “aims to “help women through heartbreak with all sorts of fabulous pick-me-ups,” in the site’s own words.

Maybe breaking up isn’t so hard to do anymore!

Google CEO Not Good at Jokes

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt, was a guest on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, which proves he’s a good sport. But of course, Colbert had to bring up Schmidt’s controversial suggestion that young people change their names to escape from the embarrassing things they posted on Facebook and elsewhere, which last forever. Colbert had mocked the suggestion on a previous show, calling it “control-self-delete.”

“It was a joke,” Schmidt said. And after a long pause, admitted, “It just wasn’t very good.”

Mr. Colbert replied amicably, “I guess it was too hip for the room.”

But Schmidt did roll with Colbert’s jokes well enough, and also educated the audience adequately that what Google does is not data mining, but using an algorithm to sort through data –something computers are better than people at doing.

Schmidt also assured viewers that we can trust Google to do its work with internet speed without using their power for evil.  It says so on their Corporate Philosophy page.  Here are their “Ten things we know to be true”:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.  (We at Speedplexer certainly agree on this one!)
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There’s always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn’t good enough.

Read more about Google’s philosophy on their “Ten Things” page and watch Eric Schmidt on The Colbert Report by visiting either the L.A. Times tech blog or the New York Times BITS blog!

The Changing Face of Video Rental

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Once upon a time, this blogger worked in a video rental store.  People would come in and browse through all the titles on the walls and shelves, organized by new releases or genre. The empty video boxes had the movie’s poster on the front and a description on the back, to help people decide. Then they’d walk up to the cash register with the empty video—that’s VHS—box, and we would find the videotape behind the counter and put it in the box for them.  We’d chit chat, they’d pay, and then go off to enjoy some frozen yogurt or deli fare from the other shops in the strip mall.  I even dated a few regular customers.  Sadly though, those days are gone, since Blockbuster, the last one standing, has filed for bankruptcy.

Of course, they say they’ll still be around, but with competition from Redbox and their $1 DVD kiosks, people are no longer paying for a storefront that requires electricity, heating and air, cleaning, employees, and other things that cost money. And I do have to admit, Netflix mailing slim little DVDs to my house is nice.  And not having to get dressed and drop the movies off in a drop box at odd hours to avoid late fees is nice too.  Then there’s Hulu and YouTube and others that let you watch movies delivered straight to your computer or television with internet speed.

The Consumerist has an in-depth analysis of Blockbuster’s bankruptcy if you’re interested. But still, we’d suspect you’re not surprised.

Online Virtual Memorials

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

We mentioned in an earlier post how handy Facebook is for funerals, but there are several other ways to create an online memorial with internet speed.

A yahoo search for “Online Memorial” turned up:
• Wikipedia’s entry for Online Memorials
• remembered-forever.org
• memory-of.com
• respectance.com
• valleyoflife.com
• imorial.com – allows you to connect with Facebook, Twitter, etc….
• sadly-missed.com
• memorialonline.com
• ilasting.com

While “Virtual Memorial” came up with:
• virtual-memorials.com
• virtualmemorialgarden.net
• virtualmemorial.com
• virtualheaven.com

Our favorite was imorial.com, because not only does it offer a clean and easily navigable tribute for free (thanks to advertisers), it allows people to connect and share via social networking and mobile phones. If advertising isn’t appealing, a reasonable one-time payment will sponsor the page. With or without sponsorship, there is no expiration date. It also allows visitors the multicultural options to offer a flower, light a candle or incense, or even to offer rice wine.

Wikipedia explains, “an online memorial is the most effective way of bringing together a community of grieving people who are geographically scattered. For many who have lost loved ones, visiting a churchyard or a crematorium is not always possible. They might live too far away, might dread crying in public or find the journey too difficult. These increasingly popular sites allow people to be able to remember and commemorate together, wherever they are and whenever they wish.

“They can also appeal to many different motivations and needs. They can be private memorial sites, or a way of sharing memories with friends and family. They can even be used to memorialize a loved one to the general public. By definition all online memorials can be visited at any time day or night and they also appeal to the environmental movement by being the greenest memorial available.”

Learning While Procrastinating Online

Monday, September 20th, 2010

One of the recent blogs from mental_floss Magazine (where knowledge junkies get their fix) shares 10 Ways to Learn Stuff While Procrastinating Online.  Here are some of the things they recommended, in order of our favorite uses of internet speed:

First, we tried the mental_floss Amazing Fact Generator . Here’s what we learned: Chocolate chip cookies were made by mistake when the chocolate in the cookie did not melt properly.

Learn while giving to charity
FreeRice.com offers word games and quizzes about famous paintings, chemical symbols, world capitals and more that increase in difficulty as you get more and more correct. For each right answer, the site’s administrators donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program.

Learn how stuff works
HowStuffWorks covers pretty much every topic of inquiry you can think of.  We at Speedplexer would also like to also direct you to check out How It Works Magazine’s site How it works daily.com.  They’ve currently got a video up teaching you how to escape from handcuffs!

Learn how to do anything
You’ve probably heard about the man who delivered his baby son after watching a how-to on YouTube. But there are plenty of less daunting how-to videos out there, like how to spin a pencil, how to play the ukulele, or how to waltz. Of course, you shouldn’t limit yourself to YouTube for these sorts of how-tos. The websites wikiHow and Instructables are also great resources.

Learn why today is so important
Brad Williams, who runs Triviazoids.com, has hyperthymesia, which means his autobiographical memory is incredibly sharp. It’s fitting, then, that his blog is all about what happened on certain dates in the past. Triviazoids is a treasure trove of little “Huh!” moments that’ll keep you going till 5 p.m.

Fashion Week Boosted by Social Media

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Here’s yet another example of how internet speed paired with social networking is changing the world as we know it.  Mashable’s Lauren Indvik gave lots of supporting info in her article How Social Media Has Changed Fashion Week, but we want to just share the gist of it with you.

Thanks to a cornucopia of new technologies, as well as public events like Fashion’s Night Out, consumers are as much a part of Fashion Week as the so-called fashion elite.

Before laptops, digital cameras, Wi-Fi and blogging platforms like WordPress, there was a relatively long delay between when a runway show occurred and when that information was relayed to consumers.

This started to change in 2005 and 2006, when a new breed of reporters, calling themselves “fashion bloggers,” began entering the tents.

Julie Fredrickson, co-founder of fashion blogging network Coutorture (acquired by Sugar Inc. in 2007) said “The fact that you could see anything the first day, even a single photo, was really novel.” Nowadays, “if you don’t have video within a couple of hours, you’re considered ‘behind,’” she adds.

Brands are taking advantage of many of the same tools as the media. This year, more than 20 labels, including Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Vera Wang and Oscar de la Renta, hosted livestreams on their websites, often accompanied by widgets that allowed viewers to comment on the looks on Facebook, Twitter or on-site with each other in real time.

More notably, brands are exploring ways to leverage Fashion Week buzz to pursue e-commerce opportunities.

From livestreaming and crowdsourced coverage, to debuting and selling collections immediately online, Fashion Week is shifting from an event for media and buyers to a spectacle for consumers.

For the full scoop, check out the whole article on Mashable.com!

Cybercriminals and Brandjacking

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

According to new studies from Security Week.com, cybercriminals create 57,000 fake web sites every week that attract over 120 million annual visits. “Brandjacking” is when fraudulent websites imitate the real ones, taking advantage of people’s trust of major brands and internet speed and security. Approximately 375 high-profile brands are targets. eBay and Western Union were the most targeted brands, making up 44 percent of exploited brands, but Visa, Amazon, Bank of America and PayPal were also heavily targeted by cybercriminals.

Banks, not surprisingly, make up the majority of the fake websites with 65 percent of the total. Online stores and auction sites came in at 27 percent, with eBay taking the spot as the No. 1 most targeted brand on the Web today. 

Over 1,100 sites contain one of the five luxury brand names in the domain name to capitalize on direct navigation and to optimize SEO rankings. And more than 50 suspicious vendors purchased one of the five luxury brands as keywords to drive traffic to their sites using paid search scams.

So how can you avoid being duped? 

Look for “https” not just “http”, on any site that is asking you to enter sensitive information. The extra “s” indicates the server is secure.  This includes login pages, online shopping sites and bank web sites.

Look for a closed padlock right side of the field where the URL is shown. If you click on it, it will open a window that gives you more details regarding the certificate. Every company that asks you for sensitive information must have a digital certificate, preferably one from an established certificate authority.
For more, check out this article from TechnoSpot called How to Spot a Fake Website.

YouTube goes Live

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Go to YouTube and be part of the limited test of their new live streaming platform – in conjunction with a few chosen partners – namely: Rocketboom, Young Hollywood, The Key of Awesome, and Howcast.  It’s a limited test because it’s only going to be happening today and tomorrow, and then it will be taken down until they’ve got everything in line for a real launch. 

Checking out the videos they’ve offered to promote the live streaming with internet speed, (which allows live comments too!) here’s what we learned: 

The Key of Awesome (from Barely Political.com) will be streaming live at 4:45 Eastern time (that’s 1:45 Pacific and 2:45 Central) with guest Kesha. Then at 3:30pm EST Eric Beck from Indy Mogul will be there to discuss their new project Rated Awesome. On Tuesday, JR Sports Brief will be streaming at 4pm EST, for those who “like sports and briefs”.  Other Barely Political shows you’ve probably heard of include Obama Girl and Auto-Tune the News.

Young Hollywood will be featuring live interviews with Tony Hawk (10:30am PST), Dane Cook (3pm PST) and Jack Ass star Steve-O (4pm PST). Go to Young Hollywood’s YouTube channel to see previous interviews with stars like Drew Barrymore and Enrique Iglesias.

Rocketboom Live and Know Your Meme will be streaming on:
Monday 9/13 at 11am EST/8am PST
Know Your Meme: DO IT LIVE! 9/13 at 9pm EST/6pm PST
Rocketboom Live: Monday 9/13 at 10pm EST/7pm PST

Howcast will be teaching you how to make films, how to avoid a sucker punch, how to create a howcast video, how to do magic trick with Matt Wayne, and on Tuesday, how to do some awesome cooking from the kitchen of The Lamb’s Club in NYC.

Read more about it on TechCrunch.com.

Behind the Wikipedia Entries

Friday, September 10th, 2010

The New York Times BITS blog shared a story about a man who was really, really interested in how Wikipedia entries are edited. It’s not a one-time interest either. James Bridle actually founded a Web site called Booktwo to “investigate, analyze, catalog and debate the future of literature and the publishing industry.” Since September 2006, BITS writer Nick Bilton tells us, the site has been home to some interesting debates over literature and its transition from paper to screens.

In a post on Monday, Bridle tried to explain to readers how much editing goes into a Wikipedia entry. It’s all documented too, and Wikipedia allows readers to view the edits by clicking a tab on the top right corner of the page.  We thought we’d check it out, so we did a search on our favorite topic, Internet Speed, which redirected us to Internet Access.  And sure enough, click on the View History tab and there they are!

The earliest edit goes back to August of 2003, and there seem to be about 500 entries.  Bridle chose the entry for The Iraq War to illustrate his point. He printed out the edit history and ended up with 12 volumes on one subject. 12 volumes used to be the size of a standard encyclopedia set.

“And for the first time in history, we’re building a system that, perhaps only for a brief time but certainly for the moment, is capable of recording every single one of those infinitely valuable pieces of information. Everything should have a history button. We need to talk about historiography, to surface this process, to challenge absolutist narratives of the past, and thus, those of the present and our future.”

See? The internet *does* make us smarter!

Social Networking for Global Good

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

While world leaders gather in New York for United Nations week, digital industry leaders will be gathering for a Social Good Summit, co-hosted by the UN Foundation. The summit’s focus will be on how technology and social networks can play a leading role in addressing the world’s biggest challenges.

Speakers will participate in person and via Skype video calls, CNN.com will be live-streaming, and the event is open to both the local public and millions around the world who want to join the conversation with the help of internet speed.

Mashable, the Social Good Summit’s lead organizer, is the top source for news in social and digital media, and event host 92 Street Y is the renowned nonprofit cultural and community center recognized for its commitment to the open exchange of ideas and perspectives.

Check out the credentials on these participants:

Chris Hughes co-founded Facebook, founded Jumo– a startup that aims to link individuals to organizations working to change the world—and directed online organizing for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Jessica Jackley co-founded Kiva, the world’s first peer-to-peer online micro-lending website and one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history.
Judy McGrath is CEO of MTV networks.
Pete Cashmore is CEO/Founder of Mashable
Susan Smith Ellis is CEO of (RED) and has partnered with iconic brands like Apple and Nike to leverage the collective power of consumers and raise funds for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Ted Turner - Chairman of Turner Enterprises, former Vice Chairman of Time Warner, founder of CNN, environmentalist and philanthropist. Turner created the UN Foundation 1998 with his historic gift in support of the United Nations.

For more info, read Social Good Summit: Tackling Global Challenges with Social Media