News
Send Free SMS Messages Through Gmail
Thursday, December 11th, 2008 | Beta, News, SMS, Software Update, google | 1 Comment
Here’s a new (err..somewhat new) feature for Gmail that has just been released via Google Labs, Free SMS messaging to any phone in the United States through it’s integrated chat feature.
To send a SMS message to one of your friends (or enemies, whichever you feel like reaching out to), just enter a phone number in the search box at the top of the chat window found in the bottom left hand corner of your Gmail interface and select “Send SMS.” Once you’ve entered in a phone number for a contact name, it is automatically saved, meaning you’ll only have to update phone numbers once.
Currently it’s only being tested on US-based cell phone carriers, but hopefully this will be expanded as the ‘kinks’ are worked out of the system.
They’re not the first online chat service to offer this type of free messaging, but hey, one more feature for those of us who use Gmail/Gchat regularly is always an added bonus!
Once you’ve added the SMS number, chats through the service appear in the same interface anyone familiar with the current Gmail chat service will recognize:
Rep. Charles Rangel and The Pair Of $40,000 Websites
Friday, December 5th, 2008 | Funny, News, Random, Unusual | No Comments
The Politico has just reported that New York Democratic Representative Charles Rangel has paid his son nearly $80,000 for two horrible looking campaign websites. While it is technically not illegal, if I was paying taxes in the state of New York I probably wouldn’t have appreciated paying for that.
Here’s the only one that they listed, www.nationalleadershippac.com , but judging from the design & execution, I can’t imagine the other being any better.
This is so bad that I think it might resemble those old MS Frontpage templates. Not only that but images are blurry, improperly cropped and there are spelling/grammatical errors throughout the site!
And to think that this is what a $40,000 website looks like! My favorite part is in the left sidebar, I’ve taken the liberty of taking a screen shot of it for you. What kind of professional would ever go live with the following still on the site:
$40,000 and he couldn’t even out-source it for $200 to any number of the cheap freelance sites that are available? Thats amazing!
According to The Politico,
“Steven Rangel’s firm was paid roughly $2,500 on a monthly basis—less than the firm that had previously managed Congressman Rangel’s Web and on-line operation (Network Politics)—and the firm’s fees included money for Web advertising designed to promote traffic to the Web site.”
Ouch!
eBay Holiday Giveaway Thwarted By Automated Script
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | Business, Hack, News, Promotion, eBay | No Comments
Apparently eBay’s in trouble for their recent $1 Holiday Doorbusters Giveaway, where they ‘randomly’ give out 100 gifts ranging from GPS devices, jewelry and even a new Chevrolet Corvette for only $1 (with a new item given away each day). The catch? eBay isn’t going to tell you what item is being given away each day or even what category it’ll be in….a plan that apparently was full of holes.
The contest was brought down to a screeching halt on Tuesday when hundreds of users began using automated scripts that would continuously bid on items for $1 in an attempt to secure the winning bid even before the actual auction page goes public. This then resulted in a large crowd of the more ‘honest’ users becoming furious at eBay for letting these rogue ‘script kiddies’ get away with cheating the system….evidence of which can be found throughout the eBay public forums.
The script in question is right now all over the internet. You can find it for sale on RentACoder for $20 or even for free in various forums.
Poor eBay.
.Tel Domain Names Now On Sale
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Business, New Beginnings, News | No Comments
Starting today you can purchase your very own .tel domain name. Regulated through Telnic, you’re forced to submit your contact information through their forms in order to submit a request to purchase a desired domain. The opening up of this TLD will be held in three phases.
The current ‘Sunrise’ phase only allows for trademark holders to register their .tel domain name (and they have to pay a pretty penny to secure it – ), the rest of us will have to wait until the ‘Landrush’ phase which begins on February 3, 2009. It will then be opened up to the public on March 24, 2009.
This TLD brings a whole new slew of potential vanity domain names to mind so it should be interesting to see what comes out of it. I can only imagine how valuable names like ‘cantyou.tel’ will go for on the auction block come March.
The downside to this new offering is the limited usage that is permitted by Telnic. Right now you can’t even upload your own company logo to be used on the domain purchased and according to their website, its primary purpose is to act as some sort of global address/phone-book. Also, the pricing for the general public release looks like it’ll be close to $20 for a one-year contract – far more expensive than your typical .com or .net domain.
Amazon Plays Catch-up And Buys Video Game Producer Reflexive
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Business, Games, Marketing, News | No Comments
Following in Google’s footsteps, Amazon just announced today that they have acquired Orange County based video game company Reflexive for an undisclosed sum (translation: a whole lot of dough). Does this mean we might see a new player in the online advertising market? Is Amazon going to make a move to try and compete with Google for contextual ads? With million of Amazon stores & affiliates out there, could a new CPC offering be right around the corner? I sure hope so.
Founded in 1997, Reflexive has produced fifteen games for the Xbox 360, PC and Mac not to mention offers flash based games through their Reflexive Arcade website. In 2005 the company won 3 awards at the 2005 Independent Games Festival for Fable of Souls and Wik.
Quoting the company founder Lars Brubaker in an article taken from the Reflexive website:
It means we’ll be able to expand our distribution network to include Amazon’s amazing distribution channel. With Amazon we will bring a huge new group of customers into play
Should be interesting to see what happens next.
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