ReadWriteWeb

Font-ificating: Delivering Web-Native Fonts

Dana Oshiro — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0800

Font faux pas happen all around us. Last night while you slept, someone wrote an entire sentence in Night Sky. While you ate breakfast, a notice about martial arts Shanghaied your inbox. And by the time you started work, thousands of grade school teachers typed their lesson plans in Comic Sans.

Sometimes poor typography is an honest mistake and sometimes it's bad judgement. In the same way that I love cringeworthy headline puns, you should be free to experiment as a web typographer. However, due to the limitation of web-safe fonts, the world might be missing out on your creativity.

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The Microsoft and Apple camps simply can't agree on a catalogue of core fonts and Night Sky, Shanghai and Comic Sans do not render across all browsers without the help of a web-native font solution. For those who are unwilling to sacrifice looks for functionality, here's an explanation of 4 solutions to make your serif's sing.

1. sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement): sIFR is an open source typography solution that uses a combination of JavaScript, CSS and Flash to replace browser text with prettier web-native text. Essentially, you're playing a Flash layer on top of the original web text. SIFR co-creator Mike Davidson blogs about it as being "a method to insert rich typography into web pages without sacrificing accessibility, search engine friendliness, or markup semantics." Critics argue that the option is slow to render in certain browsers. Nevertheless, sIFR is an extremely popular solution amongst designers and the simplified embeddable sIFR-based Font Burner is quickly gaining users.

2. @font-face: @font-face is a CSS rule where web designers reference a hosted typeface. Dave Rosenberg wrote a great piece about Firefox 3.5's addition of the rule. Some designers prefer to use @font-face as it does not require viewers to have Flash installed; however, the solution is not available across older browsers. As well, Rosenberg notes that, "As with any linked asset, there is some level of security risk if a hacker gets their hands on the font file."

3. Cufón: Cufón aims to be a sIFR alternative. Essentially, the solution allows designers to upload fonts, convert them to a proprietary format and render them using JavaScript. This solution overcomes sIFR's speed issues as it is faster to render in Internet Explorer (since it uses VML) and it does not require the use of a plug-in. It also addresses @font-face's security issues because uploaders retain control of the font files.

4. TypeKit: Judging by the fact that Evan Williams, Caterina Fake and Matt Mullenweg just invested in Small Batch Inc's upcoming TypeKit, font designers might just get the recognition (and possibly pay) they deserve. While we're unsure how this project will take shape, thanks to a TypeKit blog post, we do know that Small Batch is "working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license." Naysayers already speculate that the solution will be slow and costly to website owners, but the legal implications of this tool may open up typeface options for designers.

Discuss

Five Early-Stage Alternatives to the Traditional Investment Model of Growing Startups

Jolie O'Dell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:40:55 -0800

The ways to grow a tech startup company are outnumbered only by the ways to skin a cat.

In between multiple rounds of venture capital from investment groups and skin-of-your-teeth bootstrapping, there exists an ecosystem of organizations designed to grow startups with a mixture of business acceleration, development assistance, small rounds of funding (usually just enough to keep Top Ramen on the table), and general advisement. Each organization has its own trademark way of doing things, and here are five that we find fascinating.

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Y Combinator: From "Babies" to Businesses

This Silicon Valley-based venture firm is known for attracting some of the youngest technical talent around and molding their inklings into viable companies through a three-month process that occurs twice a year. The hacker-heavy program is headed up by Paul Graham and Anybots founder Trevor Blackwell, both Harvard grads.

How They Invest: Y Combinator gives the startups a small amount of money (around $20,000 or less) in exchange for a 2-10 percent share in the company.

Startups They've Helped: Disqus, Posterous

TechStars: Mentors as Far as the Eye Can See

This organization began in Boulder, CO, and has recently branched out to a new office in Boston, MA. The business acceleration summer program is best known for its huge, diverse, and truly impressive stable of experienced mentors, who run the range from entrepreneurial rockstars to financial geniuses. We've done a slew of video interviews with TechStars folks lately; check them out.

How They Invest: TechStars gives startups $6,000 per founder in exchange for roughly 6 percent equity in the company.

Startups They've Helped: SocialThing, BrightKite

Remarkable Wit: Venture Technologists

The Nashville-based offices of Remarkable Wit are basically a sweatshop for greatness with no capital added. This team invests development talent, consulting services, executive expertise, and operations and production labor to get startups up and running. Founded by Emma email marketing alum Marcus Whitney, this organization takes a longer amount of time than a business accelerator to become a true technology partner to the companies in its care. Check out our video interview with Whitney earlier this year.

How They Invest: Remarkable Wit invests time and labor - but no capital - in exchange for equity.

Startups They've Helped: Moontoast

SproutBox: More Money, Not Necessarily More Problems

In Bloomington, IN, the SproutBox team is taking four startups at a time and pumping around a quarter of a million dollars into each one over the course of ten months. In addition to all that mouth-watering lettuce, the 'Box is also investing teams and resources. Although they just launched this year, they plan to start a new cycle every three months.

How They Invest: SproutBox gives funding and resources in exchange for equity.

Startups They've Helped: DecideAlready, CheddarGetter

LaunchBox Digital: Capital (And More!) in the Capital

This firm, based in Washington, D.C., offers capital, advisement, and all-important access to investors and press for early-stage startups. Their inaugural class from summer 2008 took nine startups through a 12-week accelerator program with enough seed funding to get them started. Once the program is finished, demo days take place both in the northern Virginia tech corridor as well as Silicon Valley.

How They Invest: LaunchBox offers startups up to $20,000 for 6 percent equity in the company.

Startups They've Helped: ShareMeme, Buzzable

Discuss

How to Fire Non-Performers

Bernard Lunn — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:36:50 -0800

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.

We added this chapter after reading a recent comment:

"Can you/anyone help me to find the best reading on "Building an A-Team"? I have a friend who has a problem relating to this title and can't wait for the chapter to be written.

This CEO has two partners who are more of a pair of lead bookends than contributors.

I've made recommendations, but he's too timid to call them to task or, better still, hit the eject button on them.

Hate to see him sink."

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We just wrote about How to Hire an A-Team. But we did not address how to make room for A-Team-worthy players on the A-Team. If the positions are already filled with C-Team players, what do you do?

10 Tips for Firing Non-Performers

Do it fast.
Ask any seasoned entrepreneur about their biggest mistakes, and a frequent answer is something along the lines of, "I wish I had acted sooner when I knew that a key manager was not up to the job." There are many reasons why we drag this kind of thing out, and most of them are bad reasons.
Be authentic.
You can be authentic only if you understand how your own emotions play into it and if you can be genuinely sympathetic to the non-performer's situation. Are you delaying this because you feel sorry for the person? Or because you're afraid of how they or others might perceive you? Once you have control of your own feelings, you can then empathize with them and the difficulty they will go through once you fire them. But that won't stop you from doing what you need to do.
Cover your legal bases, and be financially fair and reasonable.
Your legal obligations (warnings, notices, etc.) will vary depending on the jurisdiction in which you reside and the contract (if one was signed). Stick to the letter of the law as a baseline, to protect the company. But then go beyond that to offer what you consider fair and reasonable. Ask one of your trusted managers what is fair. Ask your advisors. If the employee has done something legally or egregiously morally wrong, you can stick to the letter of the law only. In all other cases, remember that clearing space for the A-Team is a big investment in the future of your business, and that your company will be judged, internally and externally, by how well it handles this. If you don't feel you can be generous because you dithered too long (see #1) and the manager has lost a lot of money for the company as a result, just recognize who made that error: you.
Be binary.
With key managers, you have to either believe in them 100% and support them in every possible way or fire them. There should be no gray area, which would be hugely damaging to everyone. Right up until you make the decision to fire them, your position should be, "This person is A-Team material but needs a bit of help with something specific, and I will do whatever I can to help." If you are tentative, you will only make the situation worse and create morale problems for the rest of your team.
Understand why your A-Team managers need you to do this.
Everyone is in this together. Have you ever been on a rowing team and "caught a crab" (sticking your oar against the flow of water, like a destabilizing brake). That is what it's like when a weak manager messes it up for everyone else. You owe it to the others to fire this person. This may help you feel better about doing something distasteful but necessary.
Understand that the person you are firing could be an A-Team player somewhere else.
This is a bit of a feel-good factor. But there is some truth to this. They may well thrive in a different environment. Part of your fair and reasonable support (see #3) may be to help this person figure out what to do next.
Understand why the person under-performed, and make changes to ensure this type of person doesn't make it on to your A-Team again.
Firing an A-Team player because your processes are so messed up that they are not able to perform is a really bad decision. One other decision is worse, though: firing the only A-Team player on your team because that person annoys all of the C-Team players on your team. Think long and hard about this one. It does happen. The answer? Fire all of the C-Team players, and make the one A-Team player the core of your new team.
Over-communicate to the rest of your team and other stakeholders.
Firing a senior manager is always traumatic. The deed may be unavoidable, and you can make it quick, but it is still traumatic. So, you need to communicate why you are doing this, how you have thought it through, what the plan is, and anything else that would reassure the team that the ship has a calm and determined captain at the helm. But ask the other senior managers for help in making this transition, too.
Have a transition plan.
This includes planning for recruiting, training, and onboarding the replacement. But do you leave the former employee's seat empty until you can find a replacement, or do you announce the replacement the day you announce the firing? The answer depends on your circumstances, but you should be clear on what you will be doing and why.
Use this transition to make other critical changes.
Don't replace under-performers with other C-Team players. You'll just get more of the same. Instead, take this as an opportunity to change your market positioning or an internal process -- something that you have known has needed changing for a while but could not do with that C-Team player.

Discuss

SaaS Is Over-Promising and Under-Delivering, Survey Says

Steven Walling — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:30:00 -0800

According to a new survey of more than 300 enterprises by Gartner Research, software as a service has failed to impress business users across the board. Both U.S. and U.K. users polled were far from enthusiastic about their experiences with SaaS.

Most telling was that customers gave the most dismal reviews to areas where vendors are making the biggest promises: namely, low costs and high performance. Despite changing attitudes towards its security and reliability, these results suggest that providers are creating some of their own ills by overselling and under-delivering when it comes to key benefits of SaaS.

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Where SaaS Has Failed

Respondents replied with surprising unanimity on how lukewarm they felt about the performance of SaaS: on 16 factors, all received less than 5 on a 7 point scale. But those areas where they expressed greatest dissatisfaction were those in which SaaS companies have continually made rather grandiose claims.

Cost: Few enterprises anticipated annual costs to be so high. Hardly surprising, since rock-bottom cost is the number one promise of vendors of all stripes. After signing up, however, 42% said that there were high and often unexpected costs to SaaS, making it the number one reason they rejected it.

Ease of Integration: Painless interoperability with their legacy applications is a key consideration of businesses before diving into SaaS, and it's also the number two disappointment that causes them to leave it behind. For our bet, this is one realm where providers are already on the ball with improvements; countless development teams are working hard to make their applications play nice with SharePoint and other enterprise standbys.

Speed of Implementation: Fast deployment, even just days or hours in extreme cases, is a feature that the majority of outfits promote. But lack of speed in implementation garnered the third lowest rate of satisfaction.

What Vendors Can Do To Fix This

Enterprise vendors, this is your challenge: capitalize on the growing acceptance of SaaS without being overzealous. Continuing declines in IT budgets will give you a seat at the table, regardless of other concerns. But an easy pitch on being efficient and cost-effective doesn't give you leeway to brand SaaS as a magic bullet. To do that is to shoot yourself in the foot. Discuss

John Hagel Interview: Implications of the Shift Index for Enterprises

Bernard Lunn — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:24:31 -0800

John Hagel, perhaps best known for his book The Only Sustainable Edge, has been one of the leading strategic thinkers for decades. Recently, as Co-Chair of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, he unveiled the Shift Index. This is a fascinating way to look at the economy and goes well beyond the traditional GDP and employment measures. Have a strong cup of coffee before reading or listening to this interview. This is important for enterprises as they think about the big picture related to social media, changing demographics, and increased global competition. It is also valuable for enterprise software vendors as they seek to articulate the value of their products to these clients.

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The Interview and PDF

The interview is about 20 minutes, a good listen. If you want to do justice to this subject, read the PDF first as background, and then listen to the MP3. For the super-busy skimmer, we attempt to distill the essence below.

Download the MP3.

The Return on Asset Bombshell

This is what caught our attention in the email -- and is the reason we wanted to do this interview:

"U.S. companies' return-on-assets (ROA) have progressively dropped 75 percent from their 1965 levels despite rising labor productivity."

That is dramatic. If you had to select a single measure by which to judge the value delivered by a CEO, board, or management team, it would be return on assets. To quote from the Wikipedia entry:

"The return on assets (ROA) percentage shows how profitable a company's assets are in generating revenue. This number tells you what the company can do with what it has, i.e. how many dollars of earnings they derive from each dollar of assets they control."

And here is the bit that matters:

"Return on assets is an indicator of how profitable a company is before leverage."

If you want to understand the financial meltdown that happened at the end of 2008, just think leverage, i.e. debt. Companies juiced up their earnings using leverage. They have been doing this more and more in the last 30 years.

What happens when you take that away? You get the return on asset bombshell that the Shift Index reveals. It is like taking steroids away from an athlete and then saying, "Now, how fast can you run 100 meters?"

Only a US and BigCo Problem?

The massive ROA drop was measured across all public companies in the US since 1965.

It would be very interesting to see the results for Europe and Asia. Would they be different? Has anyone run those numbers?

Public companies tend to be large. We were interested in knowing whether this was simply a BigCo problem. Here at ReadWriteWeb, we report on startups and small companies. Our assumption for some time has been that an historic shift in power is taking place from BigCo to SmallCo, which can be explained by Coase's Theorem.

Now that we've seen huge companies, household names such as Lehman and GM, crumble before our eyes, thinking that BigCos are in serious trouble is no longer a radical idea. And as nature and economies abhor a vacuum, this must create opportunities for others. The question is whether this shift will be simply from some BigCos to others, as they out-compete each other, or a more fundamental shift from BigCos to SmallCos.

We asked John Hagel about this, and he told us his view that the shift in power to smaller companies, even to free-agent individuals, is a short-term trend and that bigger companies will return to dominance once they figure out how to operate in this new environment. He told us that BigCos face a great challenge in part because:

"They grew up and became successful in a different environment, where scalable efficiency was the way to generate and sustain economic value."

He goes on to explain that money follows talent and that large companies are having a hard time articulating to the most talented and creative individuals why they would be able to grow and prosper more within large institutions than as free agents or in small ventures. He believes that large companies will be able to make that transition. Clearly, given his role with Deloitte, which provides management consulting to large companies, he has to take that view. But he has also voted with his feet on this issue, by even joining a large company like Deloitte in the first place, when he was already a successful free-agent author and consultant.

His fundamental message is that BigCos need to offer a rationale other than just scalable efficiency. This is consistent with Coase's Theorem. His view is that this rationale will be "scalable learning." Scalable learning sounds like it could become an over-used buzzword, but when you listen to him describe how companies build networks of partnerships that learn from each other, it comes alive.

It certainly will resonate with anyone who has worked at a startup.

The question is whether BigCos can learn to work like agile startups again. In other words, is it possible to teach elephants to dance?

How Can Enterprise 2.0 Vendors Articulate Their Value in This Context?

I asked John if he saw a day when more CTOs and CIOs would become CEOs, because really understanding systems and technology has become so essential for leaders. He was skeptical. In fact, John views the risk-averse nature of most CIOs as a big stumbling block.

John pointed out that most companies have "only skimmed the surface" of opportunities to use social media to build richer knowledge networks that cross the firewall and connect with partners and customers. Indeed, he talked about the problem of how "most CIOs are tending to become extremely risk-averse." He pointed out that CIO turn-over is increasing, and that the reason CIOs get fired is often because of some big operational blow-up. So, they avoid anything that puts current operations at risk. In doing so, they may be creating even bigger issues, as large companies miss opportunities to leverage social media to create new value.

John's advice to Enterprise 2.0 vendors is to become a lot better at articulating how their technology can build value and competitive advantage at scale. That is obviously easier said than done. But doing it is essential. The CIO will be motivated to look at operational risks only if the CEO tells him or her that the risks of ignoring them are greater.

The Interview and PDF

Download the MP3 and PDF.

Discuss

Dreaming the Impossible Dream? CancelAds Removes Display Ads from Online Content

Jolie O'Dell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:23:46 -0800

Imagine a world where users aren't irritated by online ads, yet publishers still make money from their content.

When you're done laughing, go check out CancelAds. The basic idea behind their not-so-revolutionary but certainly unheard-of monetization scheme is to have blog subscribers pay small amounts on a recurring basis to read ad-free content online. In a world where free content is a given and what's not free from publishers is made free by pirates, how could a concept like CancelAds survive? Read on to find out what we and CancelAds' founders think.

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To succeed, CancelAds needs to combat the dual threat of visual tune-out (users' eyes are trained to avoid ad areas and zero in on content) and apps such as TidyRead and Readability that eliminate advertising, whether publishers like it or not.

According to the company's site, there is definitely a market for the service. These users are not in the majority, but the folks at CancelAds believe there are enough users in this segment to sustain the revenue model.

"According to [an] Advertising Age survey, 69 percent of Internet users are not ready to pay to view their favorite sites ad-free. But it still leaves 31 percent of all Internet users who may choose to pay...This is a huge crowd of people who dislike the way all the websites are now monetized with advertising but understand that website publishers also need to make money."

Granted, 31 percent of a group that comprises about a quarter of the earth's population and is continually growing is pretty substantial. Still, revenues for publishers could really come down to visitor loyalty and the nature of the content.

Company rep Svetlana Gladkova wrote to us and speculated that certain sites would garner revenues nearing those of print magazines, saying, "These must be the sites that have numerous ads where people tend to spend a long time (playing online games, reading about fashion and celebrities, socializing). So we are targeting mostly the mainstream-focused websites, not those targeted at the early adopters who know how to block ads without paying better than the mainstream audience."

"Though, of course, blogs targeted at early adopters have a large audience, and many will also benefit from using CancelAds because among their huge crowds of visitors there will be a certain percentage of loyal readers who will want to demonstrate their support by paying and enjoy the blogs ad-free as well."

Ad-free sites are definitely more aesthetically pleasing, from a UI and design perspective. And an ad-free site would also have significantly decreased load time. But will CancelAds and their partner sites be able to make money?

Discuss

Boxcar: Twitter Push Notifications Done Right

Frederic Lardinois — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:27:36 -0800

A few days ago, we reviewed iTwitter, one of the earliest iPhone 3.0 Twitter apps to support push notifications, but one major let-down of iTwitter is that push notifications only work when both parties use the iTwitter client. Today, however, Boxcar arrived in the App Store (iTunes link), and this client actually polls your Twitter feed every 5 minutes and sends out push notifications whenever a new direct message or @reply arrives. Messages sent between Boxcar users will be pushed out immediately.

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Not a Fully-Featured Client

It's important to note that Boxcar is not a fully-featured Twitter client. While you can reply to direct messages right from the app, it will actually open up your favorite Twitter client (you can currently choose between Tweetie and Twitterific) in order to open up replies. In the next version, which has already been submitted to Apple, Boxcar will also give you a choice to handle your direct messages in another Twitter client as well. This new version will also support multiple Twitter accounts.

OAuth Support

One nice aspect of Boxcar is that it allows you to sign in to your Twitter account using Twitter's OAuth implementation, which means that you won't have to give your Twitter name and password to yet another company.

Of course, Boxcar's 5-minute delay is still not quite the instant push that some users would like to see, but chances are that we will see this in the near future. At that point, Twitter could become a real alternative to sending text messages to your friends (assuming your friends are on Twitter and have a phone that supports push messages, of course).

We should also note that IM+ (iTunes link), which is mostly an IM app, but also supports Twitter, can also send push notifications when you receive direct messages and @replies. If the IM functionality isn't of interest to you, however, or if you don't want to switch away from Tweetie or Twitterific, Boxcar is probably a better solution at this time.

Boxcar as an Infrastructure Service

Overall, we think Boxcar is a very interesting solution, and at $2.99, it is also a dollar cheaper than iTwitter. We especially like the fact that, at least at this point, Boxcar is basically providing an infrastructure service and allows you to continue to use your favorite Twitter apps just like you used to.

Discuss

Blame it on MySpace: Ad Spending on Social Networks Expected to Drop 3% This Year

Frederic Lardinois — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:36:48 -0800

According to a new report from eMarketer, paid advertising on social networks in the US will drop 3% in 2009. In 2008, advertisers spent $1.175 billion on ads on social networks, but eMarketer predicts that this number will fall to $1.14 billion this year. The main culprit here is MySpace. EMarketer expects that ad spending on the social network will fall 15% in 2009. At the same time, it expects to see a 9% growth in ad spending on Facebook, and most other social networks are also doing just fine. EMarketer expects that this drop will be short-lived, however, and predicts a 13.2% increase in ad spending in 2010.

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It's important to stress that except for MySpace, most other social networks are still doing just fine, and advertisers have actually increased their ad spending on Facebook and other social networks. Also, while most advertisers only spend a relatively small amount of money on ads on widgets and applications, the amount of money companies spend on advertising on these platforms will actually increase from $40 million to $70 million.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, though, it is also important to note that eMarketer predicted a 10.2% growth in ad spending for 2009 in December 2008. For the upcoming years, eMarketer predicts that the market will rebound and it predicts a 13.2% increase in ad spending in 2010. However, given how far off eMarketer's prediction for 2009 was, we will just take this projection with a grain of salt.

More Bad News for MySpace

Overall, this is obviously even more bad news for MySpace, which is already struggling to just keep its current user base from moving to other services. Even as the MySpace team tries to improve the service and streamline its business, it faces an extremely tough challenger in Facebook, which also has a lot of momentum behind it right now.

Discuss

CoTweet Opens Public Beta: Now You Can Tweet Like Starbucks

Frederic Lardinois — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:17:49 -0800

The majority of companies on Twitter rely on a variety of tools to allow multiple employees to post to one unified Twitter account. CoTweet is one of the most popular of these tools and it is currently being used by major brands like Starbucks, CocaCola, and Whole Foods, as well as by celebrities like Britney Spears. Starting today, anybody can tap into the power of CoTweet, as the company just announced a free public beta program. In addition, CoTweet also announced that it has raised $1.1 million in VC funding.

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Features

CoTweet has a number of nice features that make it a great choice for any business that wants to get serious about using Twitter, and the fact that it is now available for free also gives small businesses and cash-strapped startups a chance to play the game at the same level as the big brands.

As you would expect from a tool like this, you can easily invite multiple users (up to 6 in the free version), hand out assignments to members of your team (which can be accompanied by notes), and create persistent searches (for your brand name, for example). Other interesting features in CoTweet include the ability to schedule tweets, see statistics from bit.ly in a sidebar right on the site, and set up email alerts for replies and direct messages.

Thanks to keyboard shortcuts and a no-nonsense design, using CoTweet is extremely easy, and even though it is meant to be used by multiple users, it's actually also a great Web-based Twitter client in its own right.

Free For Now

For the time being, CoTweet will remain a free product, though it is not clear how long this public beta will last and what CoTweet will charge afterwards.

If you are looking for a tool that will allow your team to easily post messages to one Twitter account, then CoTweet is definitely worth a closer look.

Discuss

Security Guru Calls Chrome OS's Security Claims "Idiotic"

Sarah Perez — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:33:00 -0800

Noted security guru Bruce Schneier, chief technologist at BT, has scoffed at Google's claims about its new OS, just announced yesterday. According to the Google blog post, Chrome OS represents a complete redesign of the underlying security architecture of the OS "so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware, and security updates." A bold statement to say the least...and apparently one Schneier doesn't think too much of. "It's an idiotic claim," he says.

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In a Yahoo News story, it's reported that Schneier isn't completely buying Google's promises. "It was mathematically proved decades ago that it is impossible -- not an engineering impossibility, not technologically impossible, but the 2+2=3 kind of impossible -- to create an operating system that is immune to viruses."

That seems to us like he's picking on the semantics of Google's statement just a bit. Google says that users "won't have to deal with viruses," and Schneier is noting that it's simply not possible to create an OS that can't be taken down by malware. While that may be the case, it's likely that Chrome OS is going to be arguably more secure than the other consumer operating systems currently in use today. In fact, we didn't take Google's statement to mean that Chrome OS couldn't get a virus EVER; we just figured they meant it was a lot harder to get one on their new OS - didn't you?

Even Schneier himself admits that an OS redesign which takes security into account "all the way up and down" could make for a more secure OS than the ones available today. However, that's different than saying that users won't have to deal with malware, he added.

Carl Leonard, security research manager of Websense EMEA, also shares Schneier's beliefs. "All software is susceptible to issues - it just depends on how much effort the malware author wants to go to and how much profit can be made," he said. "Already we have seen vulnerabilities and issues with the Chrome browser, and Google even ran a contest in which two well-known security researchers found 12 exploitable security flaws in the company's Native Client system."

OK, we get it: Chrome OS can get malware...technically speaking. But won't it get less of it?

Forrester Research analyst Andrew Jaquith, on the other hand, has more positive things to say about Google's new OS. He notes that the company has made strong security strides through its Native Client code technology and Chrome web browser, which includes features such as "sandboxing" which could help contain malware. "If [Google] brings that kind of thinking to the operating system and looks at it from a clean sheet of paper, they should be able to introduce some significant improvements," he said.

Do you think the security community is making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to Google's security claims? Or do you think they were right to point out that no OS is invulnerable to attack?

Discuss

Who Uses Social Networks and What Are They Like? (Part 2)

Sarah Perez — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:31:00 -0800

Read Part 1 of this post here.

In a recent study by Anderson Analytics, the demographics and psychographics of social networking users on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn were revealed. The ultimate goal was to provide marketers with information about users' interests and buying habits as related to their network of choice. The end result is a detailed look at the profiles and habits of social networking users on the web today. Here we'll delve into the details about the specific networks studied.

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Facebook

As we've heard before, Facebookers are older and better off. They are more likely to be married (40%), white (80%) and retired (6%) than users of the other social networks. They have the second-highest average income ($61,000) and an average of 121 connections.

In general, there is no one area of interest for this group of social networkers. Out of 45 categories, national news, sports, exercise, travel, and home and garden skewed only slightly higher than the rest. This is likely because this network has the most users and contains a high number of users within each demographic.

Facebookers are also extremely loyal: 75% say Facebook is their favorite site and 59% say they've increased their use in the past 6 months.

MySpace

MySpace users are young and there are less of them on the site than there were in the past. Even those participants who reported using MySpace said they had used the site less in the past six months.

The users of this network are more interested in having fun, specifically in the areas of entertaining friends, humor and comedy, and video games. They're less into exercise than any other network. Oddly enough, despite the youth-skewed demographics, they seek out parenting info more than users of any other network.

The average income of the MySpace user is the lowest ($44,000). They're more likely to be black (9%) or Hispanic (7%) and single (60%) and students (23%).

Twitter

Twitter users are more likely to be employed part-time (16% vs. 11% average) and have an average income of $58,000. The average Twitter user has 28 followers and follows 32 others.

The Twitter group is especially interested in news, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance, and religion. They're also really into pop culture with music, movies, TV and reading ranking higher than average. Their buying habits reflect those interests, with this group being more likely to buy books, movies, shoes, and cosmetics.

However, this group is not that loyal to the network: 43% said they could live without Twitter.

It should come as no surprise that a network of business users is the one that has the highest average income ($89,000). Also not surprising is that LinkedIn users joined the network for business or work purposes, specifically for keeping in touch with business networks, job searching, business development, and recruiting.

They tend to like news, employment information, sports, and politics. They're also more likely to be into the gym, spas, yoga, golf and tennis. Interestingly enough - and perhaps because they can afford to do so - LinkedIn users own more electronic gadgets than users of any of the other social networkers. In particular, they enjoy digital cameras, high-definition TVs, DVRs and Blu-ray players.

However, when these guys unwind, they have some interesting interests: gambling and soap operas. 12% seek gambling information online (vs. an average of 7%), while 10% go online for soap-opera content (vs. an average of 5%).

This group is more likely to be male - it's ratio of male to female users is 57% to 43%.

Conclusion

The findings of this study have confirmed in some cases what we already knew about the different demographics of these networks. However, they're still helpful since the more sources that confirm the same demographics, the more likely they are to be accurate. In addition, by surveying social networkers' interests, the study reveals some interesting insights into the various groups, like how one group is more pop-culture focused and another spends more time at the gym. That info is invaluable to marketers looking to best capitalize on their social network ad spending.

Anderson Analytics will be releasing the full report next week. If you're interested, you can check their site for more details.

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Who Uses Social Networks and What Are They Like? (Part 1)

Sarah Perez — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:30:00 -0800

A new study by Anderson Analytics looks into the demographics and psychographics of social networking users on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn with a goal of providing marketers with information about users' interests and buying habits as related to their network of choice. The end result is a detailed look at the profiles and habits of social networking users on the web today.

Some of the study's findings echo things we've already heard. For example, Facebook users tend to be old, white, and rich. MySpace users are young...and fleeing. Other info is new: Twitterers are more likely to have a part-time job, LinkedIn users like to exercise and own more gadgets.

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The Anderson study sampled over 11,000 GreenfieldOnline panelists (an online survey community) over an 11 month period to understand social networking services' (SNS) reach and overlap among the U.S. Online Population. In May, the company surveyed an additional 5,000 panelists of which over 1,250 participated in an in-depth attitude and usage survey. They then grouped the participants into two categories: those who use social networks and those who don't. To be considered a social network user, the participant had to use one of the sites in question in the past 30 days.

Of course, not everyone is devoted to one social network alone. The study found that there is some overlap between sites, as shown in the chart below.

Social Networkers, in General

Out of the 110 million Americans (or 60% of the online population) who use social networks, the average social networking user logs on to these sites quite a bit. They go to social networking sites 5 days per week and check in 4 times a day for a total of an hour per day. Nine percent of that group stay logged in all day long and are "constantly checking what's new."

Interacting with Brands

When it comes to brands online, the study found that:

52% of social networkers had friended or become a fan of at least one brand,
17% felt positive when seeing a brand on a social network,
19% felt negative when seeing a brand on a social network,
64% were neutral or didn't care about brands on social networks,
20% would like to see more communication from brands online,
35% would not like to see more communication,
45% were neutral or didn't care.

Social Networking Myths Shot Down

A couple of interesting things that came out of the study included the debunking of some social networking myths. Social networkers are not as interested in friending strangers or creating "fake" friends to boost their ego. Out of the group, 45% connect only to family and friends and another 18% will connect only to people they've met in person. In other words, two-thirds are connecting to people they actually know. Only 10% of those surveyed said they will friend anyone.

Also interesting is that only 15% of social networkers say they log on at work, thus debunking another myth about how prevalent social network use is at the workplace.

Non-Social Networkers

The study revealed the reasons why some online users aren't into social networks. Surprisingly, it's not because they hate technology - they spent just as much time on the web as the networkers do. Instead, they don't use social media because either they don't have the time, they don't think it's secure, or they think it's stupid. Yet even out of the time-starved group, 22% report they'll start using social media in 3 months and 27% said they'll start using it in a year.

Continue to Part 2 for details on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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ReadWriteWeb Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 2: Search Engines, User Interfaces for Data, Wolfram Alpha, And More...

Richard MacManus — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:00:00 -0800

In part 2 of my one-on-one interview with Tim Berners-Lee, we explore a variety of topics relating to Linked Data and the Semantic Web. If you missed it, in Part 1 of the interview we covered the emergence of Linked Data and how it is being used now even by governments.

In Part 2 we discuss: how previously reticent search engines like Google and Yahoo have begun to participate in the Semantic Web in 2009, user interfaces for browsing and using data, what Tim Berners-Lee thinks of new computational engine Wolfram Alpha, how e-commerce vendors are moving into the Linked Data world, and finally how the Internet of Things intersects with the Semantic Web.

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Semantic Web and Search Engines Like Google, Yahoo

RWW: You've been talking about the Semantic Web for many years now. Generally the view is that Semantic Web is great in theory, but we're still not seeing a large number of commercial web apps that use RDF (we've seen a number of scientific or academic ones). However we have begun to see some traction with RDFa (embedding RDF metadata into XHTML Web content), for example Google's Rich Snippets and Yahoo's SearchMonkey. Has the takeup of RDFa taken you by surprise?

TBL: Not really, but the takeup by the search engines is interesting. In a way I was happy to see that, it was a milestone for those things to come out of the search engines. The search engines had typically not been keen on the Semantic Web - maybe you could argue that their business is making order out of chaos, and they're actually happy with the chaos. And if you provide them with the order, they don't immediately see the use of it.

"The search engines have not been keen on the Semantic Web [...] their business is making order out of chaos, and they're actually happy with the chaos."

Also I think there was misunderstanding in the search engine industry that the Semantic Web meant metadata, and metadata meant keywords, and keywords don't work because people lie. Because traditionally in information retrieval systems, keywords haven't proven up to the task of finding stuff on the Web. One of the reasons is that people lie, the other is that they can't be bothered to enter keywords. So keywords have gotten a bad reputation, then metadata in general was tarred with this 'keywords don't work' brush. Because a lot of Semantic Web data included metadata, then people thought that with Semantic Web data -- again, that people will lie and won't have the time to produce it.

Google rich snippets example; image credit: Matt Cutts

Now I think there's a realization that when you're putting data online, that people are motivated NOT to lie. For example when your band is going to produce its next album, or when your band is going to play next downtown, you're motivated to put that information up there on the Semantic Web. There's an awful lot of cases when actually data is really important to people; and it's on the web anyway. So I think it's great that some of the search engine companies are starting to read RDFa.

Does this mean that they [search engines] will start to absorb the whole RDF data model? If they do, then they will be able to start pulling all of the linked data cloud in.

"The web of linked data and the web of documents actually connect in both directions, with links."

Will they know what to do with it? Because when it's data in a very organized form, I think some people have been misunderstanding the Semantic Web as being something that tries to make a better search engine - i.e. when you type something into a little box. But of course the great thing about the Semantic Web is that you can query it, you can ask a complicated query of the Semantic Web, like a SQL query (we call it a SPARQL query), and that's such a different thing to be able to do. It really doesn't compare to a search engine.

You've got search for text phrases on one side (which is a useful tool) and querying of the data on the other. I think that those things will connect together a lot.

So I think people will search using a search text engine, and find a webpage. On the front of the webpage they'll find a link to some data, then they'll browse with a data browser, then they'll find a pattern which is really interesting, then they'll make their data system go and find all the things which are like that pattern (which is actually doing a query, but they'll not realize it), then they'll be in data mode with tables and doing statistical analysis, and in that statistical analysis they'll find an interesting object which has a home page, and they'll click on that, and go to a homepage and be back on the Web again.

So the web of linked data and the web of documents actually connect in both directions, with links.

User Interfaces for Semantic Content

RWW: At the recent SemTech conference, Tom Tague of Thomson Reuters' Calais project suggested that user interfaces for semantic content are key in getting more take-up. With that in mind, I wonder if you've seen some great interfaces or designs for semantic applications in recent months - if so which ones and why did they impress you?

TBL: I think that whole area is very exciting at the moment. The only piece of hacking I've done over the past few years has been on a thing called the Tabulator [a data browser and editor], which is addressing exactly that. Partly because I wanted to be able to look at this data. And now there are lots of different ways that people need to be able to look at data. You need to be able to browse through it piece by piece, exploring the world of data. You need to be able to look for patterns of particular things that have happened. Because this is data, we need to be able to use all of the power that traditionally we've used for data. When I've pulled in my chosen data set, using a query, I want to be able to do [things like] maps, graphs, analysis, and statistical stuff.

W3C Tabulator, a data browser/editor; Image credit: wiwiss.fu-berlin.de

So when you talk about user interfaces for this, it's really very very broad. Yes I think it's important. There's also the distinction we can make between the generic interfaces and the specific interfaces.

There will always be specific interfaces; for example if you're looking at calendar data, there's nothing else like a calendar that understands weeks, months and years. If you're looking at a genome, it's good to have a genetics-specific user interface.

"I want to be able to do maps, graphs, analysis, and statistical stuff."

However you also need to be able to connect that data, through generic interfaces. So if my genome data was taken during an experiment which happened over a particular period, I need to be able to look at that in the calendar - so I can connect the genetics to the calendar.

So one of the things I hope to see is domain-specific things for various different domains, and the generic user interfaces. And hopefully the generic interfaces will be able to tie together all of the domains.

Next Page: Wolfram Alpha; e-Commerce and Linked Data

Wolfram Alpha and Natural Language Interfaces

RWW: An interesting new product was launched this year called Wolfram|Alpha, described as a 'computational knowledge engine.' It's kind of a mix between Google (search) and Wikipedia (knowledge), and its key attribute is that enables you to compute something. The founders think that 'computing' things on the fly is something we're going to see a lot of in future. What's your take on Wolfram|Alpha?

TBL: There are two parts to that sort of technology. One of them is a sort of stilted natural language interface. We've seen those sort of natural language queries for years. Boris Katz [from W3C] created a system called START [a software system designed to answer questions that are posed to it in natural language]. I think with the Semantic Web out there, those sorts of interfaces are going to become important, very valuable, because people will be able to ask more complicated things. The search engine has traditionally been limited to just a phrase, but some of the search engines are now starting to realize that if they put data behind them and have computation engines, then you can ask things like 'what's this many pounds in dollars?' and so on. So yes, those interfaces will become important.

"Those sorts of interfaces will become important [...] people will be able to ask more complicated things."

Conversational interfaces have always been a really interesting avenue. We've had voice browser work in W3C, that has been an interesting alternative avenue. It's possible that as compute power goes up, we'll see a prolifieration of machines capable of doing voice. It'll move from the mainframe to being able to run on a laptop or your phone. As that happens, we'll get actual voice recognition and pattern natural language at the front end. That will perhaps be an important part of the Semantic Web.

We talked before about what a great challenge the Semantic Web is going to be from a user interface point of view. Conversational interfaces are going to be part of [solving] that. Of course it's also going to be really valuable to have compositional interfaces - for the visually impaired and so on.

Wolfram|Alpha is also a large curated database of data sets. Obviously I'm interested in the big data set which is out there, which is Linked Data. This everybody can connect to. I don't really know a lot about the internals of Wolfram|Alpha's data set. I don't know whether they're likely to put any of it out on the web as Linked Data - that might be an interesting addition. I imagine that quite a lot of it may have come from the web of Linked Data.

e-Commerce and Linked Data

RWW: There have been reports recently that both Google and Yahoo will be supporting the Good Relations ontology and linked data for e-commerce. Companies such as Best Buy are already putting out product information in RDFa. What would be your advice to e-commerce vendors right now, to help them transition to this world of structured data on the Web. The same question could be asked across many verticals, but e-commerce seems like one area which has some momentum right now. Would you advise them just to put out their data as Linked Data?

TBL: Yup! Certainly this year is the year to do it. I've been advising governments to do it and when you look at an enterprise, you find that a lot of the issues are the same. But when you put your data from government or enterprise out there, make sure you don't disturb existing ecosystems. Don't threaten those systems, because you've spent years building them up.

Maybe there's an analogy with when the Web first started and the first bookshops went online. They were more or less a flyer, saying 'hey we have a great bookshop at 23 Main St, come on down!'. Let's say that a person named Joe owned one of these early online bookshops. If somebody had suggested to Joe that he should put his catalog online, Joe would've felt that that was very proprietary data. And he'd be worried that other bookshops would see where he was weak, so they'd be able to advertise themselves as filling that niche he's weak in.

"When you put your data out there, make sure you don't disturb existing ecosystems."

But when his competitors Fred and Albert put their catalogs online, then Joe can check which books people are browsing at Fred and Albert's websites. So Joe would [finally] be pursuaded to put his book catalog up online. But he doesn't put up the prices... until Albert and/or Fred does. And even if catalog and pricing is up there, nobody puts their stock levels online. And there was a period of time when nobody [i.e. online booksellers] had their stock levels up. But people got fed up with ordering stuff that wasn't in stock. So the first book shop to actually tell you about stock levels suddenly was then unbelievably attractive to its customers.

So there's this syndrome of progressive competitive disclosure. This happens when people realize that if you're going to do business with somebody, if you're going to have your partners up and down the supply chain, really it's useful to check the data web - and life goes much more quickly and open.

Best Buy may be what starts the ball rolling [among e-commerce vendors]. Now if I want to look out for what [products are] available, I can write a program to see what there is. If somebody wants to compete with Best Buy, to my program they'll be invisible unless they can get their data up in RDF. Doesn't matter whether they use RDFa or RDF XML, as long as it maps in a standard fashion to the RDF model, then they will be visible.

Next Page: Internet of Things; Conclusion

The Internet of Things

RWW: I'm fascinated by how the Internet is becoming more and more integrated into the real world. For example the Internet of Things, where everyday objects become Internet connected via sensors. Have you been following this trend closely too, and if so what impact do you think this will have on the Web in say 5 years time?

TBL: It connects very much with Semantic Web [and] with linked data. With Linked Data you've got the ability to give a thing a URI. So I can give a URI to my phone, and I can say that's my phone in Linked Data. And also the company that made it can give a URI to the model of the phone. They can also put online all the specs of the phone, and then I can make a link to say that my phone is an example of that product. So now any system which is dealing with me and has access to that data will be able to figure out the sorts of things I can do with my phone, which actually is really valuable. Especially if the phone breaks.

"The Semantic Web is a web of things, conceptually. Tying an actual thing down to a part of the web is the last mile."

The Semantic Web has already given URIs to things, and to types of things. When the things themselves have an RFID chip in them, then I think it's a very exciting world. One can take that RFID chip, go to the Internet and find out the data about the thing. Whether we'll be able to do that, whether the manufacturers will be open enough to allow me to turn data about the identifier of the thing into data about the thing, is yet to be seen. But it's a very exciting idea.

Pachube, an example of the Internet of Things (see ReadWriteWeb profile)

Similarly, I'd like to be able to scan a barcode and get back nutritional information about what's in - for example - a can of food. But we don't have that yet. To get that sort of thing, which is very powerful, we need to build look-up systems, which allow you to translate an RFID code or a barcode into an HTTP address.

The Semantic Web is a web of things, conceptually. Tying an actual thing down to a part of the web is the last link - the last mile. Give the thing a notion of its own identity in the web.

Conclusion

RWW: The over-riding message in both Part 1 and 2 of our interview with Tim Berners-Lee, is for companies and organizations to make their data available online. Preferably as Linked Data, which uses a subset of Semantic Web technologies. But Berners-Lee noted, in Part 1 of our interview, that he'd even be happy with the data in CSV (comma separated values) format.

It's clear that we've seen a lot of progress in linked data already in 2009. In upcoming posts on ReadWriteWeb, we'll continue to track this trend and explain how organizations can contribute their data.

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Zoho's New Plugin Turns Microsoft Access Databases into Web Apps

Steven Walling — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:40:00 -0800

To everyone wishing they could use their Microsoft Office Access database to build a Web app, your savior has arrived. Zoho has introduced a plugin to migrate Access databases on to their platform. Once migrated, they can be used to build database applications through the Zoho Creator interface.

The new plugin is just one part of a larger strategy by Zoho to integrate with Microsoft, in the hopes that they can encourage converts to their SaaS products. The boon for those who use Access databases is that they can now easily translate their data tables into applications, which can be served through Zoho at little or no cost.

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Zoho is one of the leading providers of SaaS collaborative tools for the enterprise and consumers alike. Since their advent in 2005, they've created some of the most useful productivity apps available online, and their platform as a whole shows promise.

But to compete further with Microsoft, they've recently taken to integrating with their competitor. Late last month, they even added support for SharePoint, despite a staunch belief in the superiority of SaaS.

From Desktop Database to Web App

Microsoft Access is a simple, WYSIWYG interface for creating a database. While technically you can make Access data public through SharePoint Services, actually building a working application on the Web is basically impossible out of the box.

The best options for moving your Access database onto the Web have long been either MySQL or PostgreSQL, which are frankly beyond the capabilities of many people who find Microsoft Access an attractive tool.

Enter Zoho's migration plugin.

In a process that takes relatively little time, Zoho will take your database and place it within the grasp of your Zoho Creator account. Once it's been migrated to their servers, you can collaborate on the data tables with your colleagues and easily build applications for your business. Controls for how much of the database you share are reasonably fine grained, with three levels of access.

If you're not developing an app solely for within a company, you can additionally publish your work through the Zoho Marketplace or run it on the Google App Engine.

Microsoft Access is a fairly painless way for enterprise users, many of whom are still tied to Microsoft by IT and management, to build simple databases. But there's never been a particularly easy method for sharing those databases and doing something really useful with them. While it might also be attractive to developers aiming at the consumer Web, Zoho's plugin will best aid businesses with databases that have had nowhere to move forward.

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Social Media in Germany: 5 Years Behind - Still Lots to Learn

Frederic Lardinois — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:45:02 -0800

A few days ago, we got a chance to talk about the state of blogging and social media in Germany with Marcel Weiß, the editor of Netzwertig.com - one of Germany's most popular blogs. In the interview, Weiß told us that Germany is at least five years behind the U.S. when it comes to social media and its adoption by a larger part of society. Blogs are still considered to be suspect by a large part of the German public and have very little influence, and social news sites and aggregators attract very little attention. With regards to Germany's Internet startup scene, Weiß argues that, with very few exceptions, most companies are also years behind the U.S. and just aren't innovative enough to compete.

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Blogging in Germany: Five Years Behind

Weiß argues that blogging and social media adoption in Germany is far behind similar trends in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Blogs are still considered suspect and have almost no influence over local or national politics. The mainstream media still likes to describe the Internet as a dangerous place, full of malware, porn, and scammers. While regular newspapers in Germany have also started to feel the pressure from the Internet (and every major German paper has a web site), the absence of a successful Craigslist-type site in the country has given the newspapers a longer lease on life than in America.

Unlike the U.S., no political blog has the influence of American sites like DailyKos or Talking Points Memo, though a recent (and misguided) move by German politicians to censor the Internet in Germany in order to combat child pornography led over 130,000 German Internet users to sign a petition against this plan and galvanized the German Internet community in an unprecedented way. It remains to be seen, though, if this sudden rise in Internet activism in Germany will have legs, or if it will just fizzle out quickly.

While political blogs in the U.S. also got a push during the Bush years when mainstream media outlets were generally seen as too close to the administration, German news outlets did not suffer from a similar pushback and most Germans still generally trust the mainstream media's reporting and equate blogging with excessive over-sharers who write Internet diaries about their German Shepherds.

In a post that created quite a stir in the German blogosphere (with a focus on blogging about economics), Felix Salmon argued that Germany's culture was basically the antithesis of what blogging is all about. If this is true, then maybe there is really little hope for blogging in Germany in the near future, but at the same time, there are also a number of news blogs that are doing quite well (Netzwertig is one of them), and there are a lot of passionate German bloggers who are trying to change the current negative perception of blogs.

The Absence of Social News

Unlike in the U.S., the German blogosphere also doesn't have large social news sites like Digg or Reddit to bring readers to blogs. With Yigg.de Germany has its own Digg clone, but it's not only hampered by a rather unpleasant design, but even the top stories there hardly get more than 20 votes. In addition, a headline on Yigg or similar services like Webnews.de barely drives any traffic to a site.

With regards, to blog monetization, things obviously also look equally bleak. Weiß told us that most companies still don't quite get that they could find a very targeted audience on blogs - but of course, the fact that blogs are still struggling to find a large enough readership doesn't exactly help matters here.

Startups

To some degree, the same is also true for the German startup scene, where, as Weiß argued, too many companies simply try to copy popular concepts that were developed elsewhere. The prime example for this is obviously StudiVZ, a blatant Facebook clone. Yet, while StudiVZ was able to quickly grow in Germany while Facebook was still ignoring most of the market outside of America, development of the site has now mostly come to a standstill and while Facebook is turning itself into a platform, the team behind StudiVZ has no interest in making any platform play whatsoever. Indeed, as Weiß told us, very few German startups are actually interested in the platform business and providing APIs for developers is still seen as unnecessary.

That doesn't mean that there aren't some interesting and successful German startups, of course. Xing is a good example for a service that gets things right, and SoundCloud, a very cool music service based in Berlin is another one (though the founders are actually from Sweden). It's important to note, though, that Germany never really had much of a startup scene and that there are a lot of cultural and bureaucratic barriers that would hold even some of the most determined founders from starting their own businesses.

Outlook: Bleak - But With a Silver Lining

There are multiple reasons why blogging in Germany just isn't taking off, but there is a chance that things might turn around this year. The upcoming election in Germany, for example, will give political blogs a chance to shine, especially if they manage to capitalize on the current discussion around Internet censorship. And while Twitter isn't quite a mainstream phenomenon yet, the discussion around its use in Iran during the current controversy around the elections there, also brought Twitter into the spotlight in Germany.

A number of Germany newspapers have also started to run blogs on their own sites, and with Rivva.de, the German blogosphere also has a very interesting meme-tracker that looks and feels similar to Techmeme and Memeorandum, and which provides a central focal point for the German blogosphere.

Of course, in a piece like this, we can only touch upon a small number of examples and have to rely on some sweeping generalizations. Feel free to take issue with our (and Marcel's) assessment of the German Internet scene and leave a comment.

CC-Licensed image used courtesy of Flickr user Will Palmer.

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