You can’t deny that geeks and nerds rule the world- Look at some of the Internet’s most famous- Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates founded and/or run billion dollar companies. So before you think about igoring a nerd, think who he/she might be in the future- don’t make the same mistake as MattKoval did with Sergy Brin….
And Hotforwords investigates the origin of the word ‘Nerd’.
The BBC reports that Apple has approved the Spotify app for iPhone. It will appear in the App Store as of midnight 28 August (tonight) very soon- yeah baby!
Many speculated Apple would not accept the app, since Spotify is tipped to rival iTunes because of its comprehensive, free library of millions of songs and especially since Apple have recently blocked quite a few apps including Google Voice which has upset early adopters and leaders like TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington who have been going off the iPhone.
Spofity’s co-founder Daniel Ek told BBC News that he was confident the app would bring a big surge in premium subscribers.”We’re scaling up the systems because response has been tremendous even before the app is available,” he said.The service, which launched last year, now has more than two million users in the UK, and more than six million across Europe.It has not yet launched in the United States but says it intends to do so by the end of the year.
The app will stream over 3G and WiFi and playlists are downloaded so you can even listen on the tube. The service is not available in the US yet or for Android but the Spotify team are working on it.
Oh! Yes! It’s wonderful, orgasmic news but here’s the snitch: The Spotify app itself will be free, but only Spotify premium subscribers will be able to log-in. A premium subscription currently stands at £9.99 per month.
So would you pay the £10 per month for all the songs you ever wanted on your iPhone? I’m first in line!
In related news Trusted Reviews reports: Universal Music Sweden has confirmed Spotify makes it more money than iTunes. “In five months from the launch, Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes”, said Universal Music MD Per Sundin. “It’s a fantastic development, explained by the fact that Spotify really has exploded.”
How it works:
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the Twitter offices in San Francisco yesterday. You can see the video interview with Twitter founders below. Why? Well TechCrunch reports that he’s launching his own social network to crowd source ideas for running the state.
Californian residents’ can submit ideas to the website through their Twitter account when they include the hashtag #myidea4ca along with their idea in their tweet.
Will it work? Maybe not. But hats off to him for jumping on the social media bandwagon and trying something different. Maybe he’s taking a few tricks from Obama’s use of social media, much of which was attributed to his election. Oh! If only Gordon Brown would open his eyes (literally) and try something new. Come on Gords, stop being such a boring old fart- the water’s warm, jump right in!
Started by 7 friends who found they couldn’t eat the food they loved at work, UK startup graze.com was set up to encourage people to graze instead of lunch.
Recently announcing their £2M investment from the backers of LOVEFiLM.com, Octopus Ventures and DFJ Esprit, only six months after launch, the company is now delivering over 80,000 boxes per month and has over 15,000 subscribers.
For £2.99 per box they’ll deliver your choice of fruit, nuts and other healthy bits to your office as many times per week you’d like.
What’s great is they’ll only charge per box so you don’t have to sign up for a subscription and you can change the content or delivery date of your box through your online account.
PS: With this code you might be able to get a free box: PY86B91A http://www.graze.com/ or if not your first one is half price.
With such good value for money and everybody and their dog wanted to get loose weight and get healthy, with the right marketing campaign I think graze.com could turn into the LoveFilm of the food sector. They should sponsor a major TV show like Channel 4′s You Are What You Eat.
Was having a late night browse on YouTube and thought I’d share some of the best spoof videos on YouTube- YouTubers are making a career out of creating their own content through the YouTube partner program and also selling their spoof songs on iTunes. And YouTube announced yesterday the partner program is to opened up to everyone so you can earn money out of your YouTube video too- But you’ll only get the golden email from you inviting you to be a partner if you have a video that gets thousands of hits- start making those virals now!
One woman show Venetian Princess had over 19,776,871 views on her hilarious Britney parody- the lyrics are brilliant.
iJustine’s had enough of the YouTube haters and decided to make a parody ‘revenge’ video to The Ting Tings That’s not my name. With 109,765 views and rising fast It’s going to be a biggie and I love the lyrics.
And YouTuber Alphacat got 11,360,450 views on this Obama/Beyoncé – Single Ladies spoof!
They must have calculated the exact distance needed? I want a go!
With local Twestival (Twitter +Festival) coming up in a couple of weeks, 10-13 September, it’s time to have some fun, dig deep and raise some money for your local area. If Twestival Global’s success is anything to go by then Twestival local will be one big fat party and one big fat wad of cash raised, this time for causes in your local area.
Before Twestival (or global Global Twestival as the organizers are now calling it) the notion of charity was, to me, dull, annoying and far removed from where I was. It was what other people did.
My excuse? Where was my money actually going? If I donated to a big, established charity there was no way of following where my cash would end up. Was it paying office rent, staff pay, administration fees or was it actually going to a child in Africa?
When the Tsunami stuck in 2005 I was living/traveling in Australia and calls for charity donation popped up here, there and everywhere and I did not donate to any of them.
Instead, enamored by this feeling of needing to know where my money was going, on my next round the world stop in New Zealand, I bought a bucket and walked around the streets of Queenstown for a month raising money which I then took myself to the Tsunami affected parts of Sumatra in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand. I met and befriended local families whose houses had been destroyed and some suffered family bereavement. After hearing their stories and knowing that my funds could directly make a difference and help recuperate their lives, I distributed the $3000 raised between them.
Fast forward to London and I had slipped back into fast lane life; the notion of charity was once again distant and the reality of annoying street fundraisers shoving a clip board in my face, hassling me to donate, had returned.
Then Twestival came along and made it cool to be part of charity fund raising, why? Partly because It happened through social media and partly because of the charity Twestival chose to donate its funds to- charity:water.
charity:water is a young charity (three years old). They document how the charity is growing and also, through social media (Twitter and video), document exactly what they are doing with your funds. I have been following their Twitter and subsequent progress with funds from Twestival for months.
And charity:water are not the only ones broadcasting through social media. Learn As One, a charity founded by the UK’s Steve Heyes, are also using social media to create transparency in the giving process.
Learn As One builds schools in Africa and was started after Heyes, working as a fundraiser himself, wanted an answer to that reoccurring question, ‘‘Where exactly does my money go?”.
“Thanks to the ever increasing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube there was a cheap and effective way demonstrate the answer to thousands of people,” said Heyes on his site.
“Take a video camera and an SLR to Africa, find a community who need a school and give people in the communities a way to share their story with the world. Raw, honest and transparent so donors can see exactly who and how they can help,” he added.
Through a combination of blogging, Twitter and video, Learn As One donors can keep exactly up date with progress made and interact with communities in Africa by asking questions on Twitter.
Of course I understand any organization incurs running costs, but it’s this kind of interaction and transparency that makes the notion of charity less dubious to me – More charity transparency, now please!
In case you don’t know: Twestival: launched with a tweet on 8 January 2009 and barely a month later on 12 February, there were 202 cities around the world hosting events to benefit charity: water. Over 1,000 volunteers, crowdsourced through Twitter, contributed their skills, over 10,000 people participated globally and countless others donated or used their creativity to ensure 100% of all proceeds went direct to charity: water projects. The total raised in one day was over $250k through these events and online donations; resulting in 55 wells with more than 17,000 people served in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.
And here is the story of Charity:Water vid…
And Learn As One founder Steve Heyes from Africa
Armed with my Flip at Open Soho last Thursday I caught up with a couple of London based startups/companies.
First of James Haycock tells us what The Racing Forum is all about:
And Mark Kemp tells us why Iomart hosting is hosting with a difference:
Just found another interesting video over at The Next Web. This time it’s an advert for Sony Vaio’s new range of laptops. The video is behind the scenes filming at a Social Media Addicts Association meeting, with members discussing the problems caused by their addiction in graphic detail.
The concept is great- judging by my own usage of social networks I’d say I was totally addicted, but I’m not sure the video quite works and I don’t know why- what do you say?
