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With the recession in full swing, industries across the charts have been
laying off hundreds of employees — making the job market increasingly
competitive. So what’s a freshly unemployed tech professional to do? Hit the streets and
start networking. As the hordes of job-seekers descend upon trade shows, conferences and meetups
around the country, a few mobile startups could be poised to profit from their misery: digital
business card services.
The last few months have seen the launch of a number of services, delivered via mobile
technologies from iPhone apps to text messages, that aim to do away with the business card.
Previously, companies may have pitched their product as a “green” alternative to
dead-tree info swapping, but in today’s market, the dynamic nature of the digital business
card could prove to be a more powerful selling point — at least for a startup
that can dispatch updated, social media-connected personal data securely across the range of
mobile devices.
The iPhone has been a key driver of the market for digital business cards, at least in terms of
visibility. Gabe Zichermann, CEO of rmbrME, says his company, which had previously offered an SMS
solution with about 1,000 users, had 10,000 users (and even more downloads) of its beamME
application in the first 10 days it was available on the App Store. Other apps include Nameo, Handshake, FriendBook and iCard. Most of the services work roughly the same way: Bring two
iPhone users together, pull up the app, and a simple touch command sends information between
their devices.
However, Nameo, Handshake and iCard are limited to contacts with an iPhone. But what about those
of us without iPhones? Dub, which was launched
in beta in June of this year, is another option for the BlackBerry set, and as of
this week, its service is also available for Android phones (currently that’s just the
T-Mobile G1). (The company says service for the iPhone and Windows Mobile are due out in
December.) Perhaps Dub’s biggest claim to fame is that it offers integration with common
business services. Data can be beamed to a Salesforce.com contact management system, as well as
to mobile devices, and Dub users will soon be able to sign into the service using their LinkedIn
login and password.
But even Dub, which allows for limited cross-platform sharing, requires that both users have a
smartphone and install the app. For on-the-go information sharing, the “Do you use this
app?” conversation can add an extra layer of awkwardness and time. For universal sharing,
users might be better off with an SMS service from players such as Dropcard,TextID and rmbrME. Even iPhone
app-addicts have an option: While most iPhone apps rely on Wi-Fi networks and geolocation,
rmbrME’s iPhone app, beamME,
allows users to send personal data from their iPhone to any phone, whether it has a data
connection or just a simple voice connection.
I’m still slogging along with a Nokia 2610, so
I’m partial to technology that doesn’t leave me (with my peskyÂ
insistence on multiday battery life) out in the cold. I’ve found services like rmbrME and
Dropcard to be simple to use, and I could easily send my data to smartphone-carrying folks via
shortcode. Better yet, people could send info to me, without even knowing that I still carry a
Stone Age-era device.
While there hasn’t been much venture investment in the space just yet, Zichermann says
rmbrME has raised just shy of $1 million in angel investment, and DubMeNow has reportedly raised $1.1 million in
angel funding. DreamIt Ventures
provided seed funding for Dropcard. But the startup founders are optimistic: Zichermann says VCs
are exactly the kind of social, tech-savvy users that “get” services like rmbrME,
which should make it easier to raise funding when the time is right.
Also promising in this market: None of the services is dependent on advertising revenue. Most of
the services use a “freemium”
model, and several are working to add enterprise-level functionality. DubMeNow’s
BlackBerry-focused, Salesforce.com-integrating app seems aimed squarely at the
business-to-business marketplace. Zichermann says rmbrME also has its eye on premium services
aimed at the enterprise market, such as offering a branded, customized look and feel for user
cards.
You probably can’t throw away your business cards just yet. But if you’re in the
market for a new job, sign up for an SMS service and head out to the trade shows.
img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/experimentation.png" title="I understand large sample sizes
are key to a low sigma, but the entire sophomore class?" alt="I understand large sample sizes are
key to a low sigma, but the entire sophomore class?" /
Attorney General Michael Mukasey was giving a speech tonight at the Federalist Society meeting
tonight when a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mukasey_collapses;_ylt=AokrT6CSM.tdkwtxUXf8gWis0NUE"he
collapsed on stage/a. Talking Points Memo has a a
href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245321.php"report from an eyewitness/a. br / The
TPM article goes into detail about the contents of the speech before he collapsed. Apparently he
was defending the administrations use of torture and why there shouldn't be prosecutions of
officials who approved it.
Verizon Wireless tells Obama reps that workers improperly accessed records of a cell phone the
president-elect used recently, exposing calls and phone numbers but not e-mail, according to a CNN
report.
YieldBuild, an ad
optimization platform that helps users manage multiple ad networks and position advertisements on
their webpages, has launched its self-service program to the public. When we last
covered the company, YieldBuild was still in private beta and only sites with more than
500,000 monthly visitors were eligible to participate. Now, web publishers of any size are
welcome to join, and the installation process has been streamlined to require only a few snippets
of JavaScript.
YieldBuild helps publishers maximize their ad revenues in a number of ways. To begin, the
publisher ties their accounts from Google AdSense and similar services to their YieldBuild
account. Next, they designate a number of hotspots on their page where ads can appear, but
don’t necessarily have to (for example, I could tag five possible ad spots on a page and
let YieldBuild figure out the ideal configuration). YieldBuild will automatically display
different configurations to different visitors until it figures out where each ad should be
placed for optimal results. The service also takes into account ad appearance, adjusting font
size and color as needed. In the past the system would take around 100,000 visitors until it had
‘learned’ the ideal settings, but the new algorithm needs only a fraction of that
traffic.
YieldBuild has also recently introduced support for CPM ad networks, and allows users to not only
perfect the placement of their ads, but also which ad networks should be used at a given time to
maximize revenues. Other players in this space include Pubmatic and Rubicon Project
which also offer management for multiple ad networks, but focus less on the actual placement and
formatting of the ads.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the
free database of technology companies, people, and investors
URGENT: Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed to hospital after collapsing during speech;
observers say he 'went down hard' and 'just started shaking and collapsed' | VIDEO
a
href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1081072/Pictured-The-Cave-Crystals-discovered-1-000ft-Mexican-desert.html"Utterly
amazing photos of Mexico's Cave of Crystals./a It sits waiting for Kal-El's return! br /
We here at Gizmodo have been getting interesting missives from all you readers about how ATT's 3G
network has just plumb broke. Any calls made to an iPhone 3G goes straight to voicemail, but with
no...
pimg src="http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/07/iphone-final-attack-2.jpg"
style="display:block;" /We here at Gizmodo have been getting interesting missives from all you
readers about how ATT's 3G network has just plumb broke. Any calls made to an iPhone 3G goes
straight to voicemail, but with no notification to the iPhone owner. Switching back to the Edge/2G
network will get the phone to start acting normally again. While that sucks, the biggest problem
seems to be getting ATT to admit that anything is wrong in the first place./p blockquote pI
connected with Apple Tier 2 support and we conference called into ATT. They claimed that it was my
device (never had a problem until this point) and that before they would put in another ticket I
had to test my SIM card in another non iPhone 3G ATT device. If that behaved properly then they
said Apple should replace the unit. If the problems returned with the new iPhone then and only
then, will they submit it to "voice tech" whatever the hell that is./p pThey claim no known issues,
but I asked a stranger at Starbucks today whom I noticed had a 3G if he was having the same issues,
and before I could even finish my question he described the same symptoms had been happening all
week. This is along with five collegues/friends. So far this has gone under the radar and ATT is
denying any problems. The last tech insisted it wasn't the network but instead a slew of
"all-the-sudden" faulty iPhone 3Gs. He claimed since my phone rang on his end and that he could
leave a voicemail "it was there" the phone just wasn't getting it, yet somehow that's not a network
problem?/p /blockquote pYeah... ATT, here's the rub. We're hearing that your 3G network's down all
over the place, from Boston to Hawaii. Even if you can't get a fix out right away, the first step
to recovery is actually being able to tell people you have a problem. i-Thanks Eric and Aaron!/i/p
br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=8f9e0046ffc48d4e6cc6aa26f06d9988amp;p=1"img
style="border:0;"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=8f9e0046ffc48d4e6cc6aa26f06d9988amp;p=1"
border="0" //adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=vxrz0Ej1"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=K5D9Aqzk"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=bdsYrMn1"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=bdsYrMn1" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=2UwyJrNJ"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=2UwyJrNJ" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/PZqby1kGdNk" height="1" width="1"/
pimg src="http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/07/iphone-final-attack-2.jpg"
style="display:block;" /We here at Gizmodo have been getting interesting missives from several
readers about how ATT's 3G network has just plumb broke in several areas, like Boston and Hawaii.
Any calls made to an iPhone 3G goes straight to voicemail, but with no notification to the iPhone
owner. Switching back to the Edge/2G network will get the phone to start acting normally again./p
blockquote pI connected with Apple Tier 2 support and we conference called into ATT. They claimed
that it was my device (never had a problem until this point) and that before they would put in
another ticket I had to test my SIM card in another non iPhone 3G ATT device. If that behaved
properly then they said Apple should replace the unit. If the problems returned with the new iPhone
then and only then, will they submit it to "voice tech" whatever the hell that is./p pThey claim no
known issues, but I asked a stranger at Starbucks today whom I noticed had a 3G if he was having
the same issues, and before I could even finish my question he described the same symptoms had been
happening all week. This is along with five collegues/friends. So far this has gone under the radar
and ATT is denying any problems. The last tech insisted it wasn't the network but instead a slew of
"all-the-sudden" faulty iPhone 3Gs. He claimed since my phone rang on his end and that he could
leave a voicemail "it was there" the phone just wasn't getting it, yet somehow that's not a network
problem?/p /blockquote pIt seems like this isn't a nation-wide thing, but there's enough complaints
out there to determine that this probably isn't because of the iPhone either. How's it looking to
everyone?/p pi-Thanks Eric and Aaron!/i/p br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=f667e13d65fc65d3517f37a219aed18cp=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=f667e13d65fc65d3517f37a219aed18cp=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=f667e13d65fc65d3517f37a219aed18c" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=DgjaIDnl"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=uOWF8QVV"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=GBJh75S9"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=GBJh75S9" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=knXla7sS"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=knXla7sS" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/0LtYDvke7G8" height="1" width="1"/
We had a tale of time travel getting a man out of a speeding ticket. smalla
href="http://www.metafilter.com/76217/Typoinduced-time-warp"(Previously)/a/small Now we have a man
trying to pay a bill with a a
href="http://www.geekologie.com/2008/11/good_idea_man_submits_drawing.php"spider drawing/a --not a
speeding ticket this time. small(He mentions time travel as well.)/small br / Today he sold a
href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-drawing-of-a-7-legged-spider_W0QQitemZ190265903424QQcmdZ"the
spider on eBay for $10k./a a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx6t11D99tA"J. Giles/a
unavailable for comment. br / br / a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman"Neil Gaiman/a
thinks selling a
href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/not-really-about-anything.html"7-legged spiders/a is
fine if they are not sold in quantity.
We’d noticed an increasing number of people emailing on a large-scale bucket test (a
product change tested on just a percentage of total users) that Google has been conducting
for
months - adding a Digg-like voting feature to search results (which also changes the ranking)
as well as user comments.
Tonight, Google apparently said “what the hell” and turned it on
for everyone.
The changes are called SearchWiki, and are a dramatic departure from Google’s streamlined,
algorithm-rules approach to search. It takes features from Digg to allow users to vote site
results up or down, as well as features from Wikia
Search to allow users to add comments, move search results, etc. The result are customized
results that appear every time you do that search in the future (assuming you are logged in).
Here’s a demo video:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard
because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
It seems one of the largest
gripes over the G1 has partially (if not mostly)subsided today - the G1 is now
shipping with an obligatory USB to 3.5mm headphone adapter. And although it’s not the most
minimalistic version that could’ve been used, I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that new
G1 owners will be more than pleased with the chance to listen to their music through a pair of only
“slightly” better headphones. *I’m sure your ears will be thanking you later on.
Now, about that carrying case…
[Gizmodo via*TmoNews]
Designed to help optimize your PC for smoother, more responsive game play in the latest PC games
with the touch of a button, the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility helps achieve the performance edge
previously only available to highly technical enthusiasts. It works by temporarily shutting down
background processes and intensifying processor performance with AMD Boost. That means you can keep
all the features of Microsoft® Windows Vista® ready for when you need them, but turn them
off when you are ready to get down to serious business – gaming.1
If there's a thread already talking about this point it out and I'll lock this one.
Anybody used this thing? Looks like it's making some pretty bold claims! Too bad I can't try it out
because it seems the only thing it really requires is an AMD processor, and the only pc I have with
an AMD proc in it isn't doing much gaming because it only has an X300 videocard in it. I assume
you'll need all AMD components for the full effect? Whatcha think? Bloat? Awesome program?
Jalopnik's Road Test Editor Wes Siler is currently at 35,000 feet, flying American Airlines from LA
to NY. Since his Boeing 767 had the recently launched Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi, and since he was...
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/AA_in-flight_porn_5.jpg"
width="807" height="504" style="display:block;float:none;" /a
href="http://jalopnik.com/people/Wes/posts/"Jalopnik's Road Test Editor Wes Siler/a is currently at
35,000 feet, flying American Airlines from LA to NY. Since his Boeing 767 had the a
href="http://www.aa.com/content/amrcorp/pressReleases/2008_08/20_gogo.jhtml"recently launched Gogo
in-flight Wi-Fi/a, and since he was already using it to get his work done, we decided to see how
far the service could go in terms of in-flight comforts./p pHunched over his MacBook in coach "like
a T-Rex," Siler was able to complete a battery of tests. The upload rate wasn't shabby; 257 Kbps
was enough to let him upload a Flickr gallery, for one thing./p pSince Speakeasy.net reported a
respectable 658 Kbps download speed, it was no surprise that Siler reported A-OK on the
all-important mid-flight pornage test. He was able to stream some nice naughty material, as you can
see (artfully blacked out by me) in the screengrab above. (That's Wes, holding his ticket, in the
Photo Booth shot next to it.)/p pThe porn access should come as good news for people who fear that
other mid-air nemesis, the Chatty Cathy: At least porn will keep some passengers distracted from
voice chat, which worked all too well in our quick test. Truth be told, the only thing that didn't
work was video chatmdash;iChat just kept choking and crashing. Hey, isomething/i was bound to fail
as Siler hurtled through the sky high above Nebraska at an air speed of 581 miles per hour./p pIf
you've had any interesting in-flight Wi-Fi experiences, by all means share them in comments. [a
href="http://www.aa.com/aa/homePage.do"AA/a; iThanks Wes!/i]/p pbUpdate: Here's how REAL it
ismdash;Siler just took a screenshot of this article while in the air and IM'd it to me:/bbr img
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/AA_In-Air_Giz_Screen.jpg" width="807"
height="504" style="display:block;float:none;" //p br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=594119118cfb176f31ed9f505919cf63p=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=594119118cfb176f31ed9f505919cf63p=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=594119118cfb176f31ed9f505919cf63" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=OMbukITL"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=gaqi6Mpd"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=Zb6bso3U"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=Zb6bso3U" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=HVc5iWDp"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=HVc5iWDp" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/fBaniAW_v7g" height="1" width="1"/
Explain this scenario.
iPhone G1 8GB running 1.4.1 from ATT
Dropped in swimming pool
Dries on top of fridge for 4 months
Powers up and works except somewhat flaky power bttn
Ran iLiberty+ to break/unlock...etc.
All good except YouTube - many attempts to fix fail
Use for 2 months
Get QuickPwn and decide to go to 2.1
Use iTunes to flash phone to 2.1
All of a sudden after the flash to 2.1 it won't go into
DFU mode now way, no how. And if you press hold/power to reboot
you just get the apple logo and then straight into recovery mode.
Absolutely nothing works - tried every technique on this board
including a couple of DFU force executables.
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
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