pFiled under: a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/software/" rel="tag"Software/a, a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/freeware/" rel="tag"Freeware/a, a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/holidays/" rel="tag"Holidays/a/ppimg width="225" vspace="8" hspace="8" height="204" border="0" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/tuaw_cb_get-into-the-halloween-spirit-with-a-screen-saver_192783.jpg" /With a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween"Halloween/a only a couple weeks away, it's time to get your Mac into the holiday spirit ... with a screen saver! The free a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/jackolanternscreensaver.html"Jack-o-Lantern/a screen saver from a href="http://www.killerrobots.com/"Killer Robots/a does just that -- without the mess of carving a pumpkin. It has over 25 pre-made designs, but you can also create your own pumpkin designs in Photoshop using the carving template provided by the developer.br / br / The screen saver features a very realistic pumpkin that rotates against a black background. You can control many settings including: seconds between pumpkin design changes, camera rotation, quality, and screen glow. In addition, you can select which designs you want shown. Check out our a href="http://www.tuaw.com/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/"gallery of screenshots/a to get a feel for the quality of this awesome screen saver. You can download the screen saver from the developer's a href="http://www.killerrobots.com/screensavers/"website/a.br / br / If you want even more customization, check out the a href="http://iconfactory.com/search/freeware/halloween"Icon Factory's Halloween section/a for free icons (compatible with a href="http://panic.com/candybar"Candybar/a from Panic). Do you have another favorite holiday screen saver or icon set you like to use? Let us know in the comments! br / br / br / div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/"Jack-o-Lantern Screensaver/a/strong/pa href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/1092524/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/1000.cb_jack-o-lantern_firstlook_123_thumbnail.png" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/1092525/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/1001.cb_jack-o-lantern_firstlook_123_thumbnail.png" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/1092526/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/1002.cb_jack-o-lantern_firstlook_123_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/1092528/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/1003.cb_jack-o-lantern_firstlook_123_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://".$GLOBALS["HTTP_HOST"]."/photos/jack-o-lantern-screensaver/1092529/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/1004.cb_jack-o-lantern_firstlook_123_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/div/ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/jackolanternscreensaver.htmlRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/12/get-into-the-halloween-spirit-with-a-screen-saver/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/1338763/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/12/get-into-the-halloween-spirit-with-a-screen-saver/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/abr /br /pmap name="google_ad_map_16-1338763"area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/16-1338763?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28" /area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23" //mapimg usemap="#google_ad_map_16-1338763" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-3546992251556849amp;channel=21amp;output=pngamp;cuid=16-1338763amp;url=http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/12/get-into-the-halloween-spirit-with-a-screen-saver/" //p pa href="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~a/weblogsinc/tuaw?a=rd5fNz"img src="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~a/weblogsinc/tuaw?i=rd5fNz" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?a=Fujwm"img src="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?i=Fujwm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?a=z5ncm"img src="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~f/weblogsinc/tuaw?i=z5ncm" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.tuaw.com/~r/weblogsinc/tuaw/~4/418543628" height="1" width="1"/

As cute as Old Sack and Sackiroth may be in digital form (despite being gun-toting, sword-wielding mass murderers), they're nothing in comparison to their real life counterparts. These costumed SackBoy plush dolls appeared during the public days in the LittleBigPlanet section of the Sony booth. Media Molecule continues to tease us with physical SackBoys that we just can't have.

On nearby screens a trailer showed the two newest members of the LittleBigPlanet family running and jumping through various levels of the game. Adorable and ecstatic? Yes, but also ruthless Ninja killers.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/tg...d-kill-ninjas/

pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/ps3/" rel="tag"Sony PlayStation 3/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/action/" rel="tag"Action/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/tgs/" rel="tag"TGS/a/pdiv style="text-align: center;"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/10/oldsnakesephirothrealsackboysawwww111008490.jpg" alt="" /br / div align="left"As cute as a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/09/you-got-metal-gear-and-final-fantasy-in-my-littlebigplanet/"Old Sack and Sackiroth/a may be in digital form (despite being gun-toting, sword-wielding mass murderers), they're nothing in comparison to their real life counterparts. These costumed SackBoy plush dolls appeared during the public days in the emLittleBigPlanet/em section of the Sony booth. Media Molecule continues to tease us with a href="http://www.mediamolecule.com/2008/02/06/sackboy-fo-real/"physical SackBoys/a that we emjust/em emcan't have/em.br /br /On nearby screens a trailer showed the two newest members of the emLittleBigPlanet/em family running and jumping through various levels of the game. Adorable and ecstatic? Yes, but also ruthless Ninja killers. Check some of it out in the video after the break./div div align="left" /div /divpa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/tgs-08-old-snake-and-sephiroth-flip-out-and-kill-ninjas/" rel="bookmark"Continue reading emTGS 08: Old Snake and Sephiroth flip out and kill ninjas/em/a/pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/tgs-08-old-snake-and-sephiroth-flip-out-and-kill-ninjas/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1339255/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=amp;fc=1amp;url=http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/tgs-08-old-snake-and-sephiroth-flip-out-and-kill-ninjas/" title="Linking Blogs"Linkingnbsp;Blogs/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/12/tgs-08-old-snake-and-sephiroth-flip-out-and-kill-ninjas/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.joystiq.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=BASLm"img src="http://feeds.joystiq.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=BASLm" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.joystiq.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=bqTym"img src="http://feeds.joystiq.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=bqTym" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.joystiq.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/418398864" height="1" width="1"/

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=48f19776796c7a5b004cd784ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0maxX=391maxY=283" border="0" alt="man with head in the ground.jpg" title="man with head in the ground.jpg" width="391" height="283" /VCs and angels sent out a series of "look out!" warnings to their charges last week. Now we're starting to see slightly more positive takes from other investors to their startups: Something along the lines of "Look out! But take advantage of the openings"./p pJohn Borthwick, who heads up the a href="http://betaworks.com/"Betaworks/a incubator/"business acceleration platform" (investments in Twitter, Tumblr, someecards, etc.) sent out his own memo out to his portfolio companies Saturday afternoon. The following is an abbreviated version (John suggested we use the art to the right):/p p----------------/p pOut east, a downturn has been evident for a while, and most of you have already started to make adjustments to your plan. But two things did change this week:/p p(a) The credit crisis and the crisis of confidence in our markets got way worse.br /(b) Silicon Valley woke up to the fact that something had changed./p pThe first point is the one to focus on. The second is a distraction./p pYou need to think about things differently. Things have changed and your priorities should change. I broke up our thinking into two blocks. The first is what you should be thinking about in terms of your business. The second outlines some thoughts on what this means for the market./p p style="text-align: left;"span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial;" divimg src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2ik=0188ed3493view=attth=11cee0fd2cc03b77attid=0.2disp=embrealattid=0.1.1ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0" border="0" width="493" height="220" //div /span/p div style="text-align: left;"br //div pstrong#1. Priorities for you and your business:/strongbr /br /Things look ugly, but with distress comes opportunities. Scarcity drives innovation. Always has, always will. Do more with less: A trite one liner that you need to make part of your companies DNA./p pThere will be more emphasis on user value, more ways to make money from that value. We will finally fess up to the fact that many of the ad models of web 2.0 don't yield results, and we will invent ones that do. All around there will be more innovation./p pIt's counterintuitive, but during an up cycle people accept conventional wisdom, and during a down cycle people challenge it. That's good. Very good. And the cycle will winnow competition.br /br /strongFollow the money /strongbr /Many of you are running your businesses very cheaply right now and break-even is within reach. Get there./p pOne of the headline shifts that is taking place is that people (partners, investors, the market) are going to shift focus from audience + revenue to just revenue. This happened in the last downturn and a lot of entrepreneurs didn't adapt to the shift till it was too late. Cash is king. Cash gives you flexibility and options. Once you get to break-even the whole world will look different./p pMaking money, like everything you do, takes work, time and attention. It will take longer than you expect and it happens in ways you can't plan. Start working on it now. If you have just raised money or are raising, get it closed. The cost of capital is going up. Think runway, cash and revenue.br /br /strongWatch your spend, make necessary cuts now /strongbr /If you think a piece of your product needs two developers to build it, do it with one. Be excessively creative in thinking about revenues and trying those ideas. Rethink *all* your projections, looking at how reductions in cost and accelerations in revenue strategies affect the numbers. Then redo them again. You'll be stronger./p pFace reality as it is, not as you wish it was. Change the mix of sales and performance-based employees. Think about what you can outsource -- and how you can distribute your costs. It's hard and it requires different workflow, but when it works it can change your whole business makeup./p pAnd if you need to make cuts, make them now. Don't cut 10% now and then another 10% early next year -- make the change in one fell swoop. Piecemealing your way through change kills momentum, hurts culture and the team and is a chickenshit way to run a business. Figure out what your runway looks like and do more with less. Figure out how to extend your runway till you get to break-even. br /br /strongKnow your data/strongbr /You have heard me rant about this before, but you have to know what's going on. Know your data really really well. Financial data, your burn, your cash flow, revenues, runway and site usage data. There are a lot of things you can do to improve everything from burn to traffic. But first you need to know where you stand. So every week you have a picture of your position. Make this a habit./p pI used to hate to do this, but once you make it a habit it becomes a tool. During an up cycle you can follow instinct, and usually your raw instinct is what you should follow. But during a down cycle your instinct can lead you far astray. br /br /strongCompete/strongbr /Take the offensive. Many of your competitors are not as well positioned as you. This is an opportunity to take share. These points are in order of priority -- once you know where you stand, where you are making money, what your burn is -- think aggressively about growth and market share./p pThis is my favorite slide from the Sequoia deck (link to the deck is below):/p div style="text-align: left;" divbr //div divspan style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial;" div divimg src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2ik=0188ed3493view=attth=11cee0fd2cc03b77attid=0.1disp=embrealattid=0.1.2ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0" border="0" width="488" height="397" //div /div /span/div /div pstrong#2. Big, broad changes./strongbr /With the economy heading into the worst setback most of you -- most of us -- have ever seen, it's time to think about big, broad changes. It's been a long week, but let me try to anticipate a few.br /br /strongMomentum and change /strongbr /Some of our business is based on momentum. That's taken a turn for the worse. You have to adjust fast -- that's your job. As humans we accept change as something that someone else needs to adapt to. But that's not true for your business: You have to change, not someone else. And remember a Welsch maxim: Control your own destiny or someone else will. Change before you have to.br /br /strongCost of capital/strongbr /The cost of capital has gone way up. Don't panic, just make sure you realize the rules have changed.br /br /strongAdvertising /strongbr /There will be a flight to quality; a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/how-bad-will-the-ad-market-get-time-to-get-out-the-history-books"this always happens/a. But this time I think it's going to be more than that. For TV and print this has been an unusual year: The shift to online has been stemmed first by the Olympics and second by the election. But year-over-year growth in ad spend has been down across the board (see slide 32 of the sequoia deck, linked below). Expect the next year to be ugly and different. I think spend will move online, very fast, and print may right downhill. And people will look for ROI -- real measurable results. Monetizing social media is hard. Much to do here, much money/share to make/take.br /br /strongBeyond advertising/strongbr /Much of Web 2.0 was about advertising to the tail -- the wonders of Google and AdSense. The truth that most people haven't spoken up much about is that (a) neither Google or Yahoo did a great job of monetizing much outside of search and (b) the Google business is still mostly in the head of the curve, not the tail./p pThe scale focus on auction-based ad buying has distracted us from other business models. This week I had a bite with the CEO of Hi Media (who bought Fotolog): They are an ad network, but they are now making a lot of money on payments. And a significant chunk is via "microfame" payments -- Fotolog users voting each other up in a href="http://flog.fotolog.com/rank"popularity based boards/a. In September, some users spent more than $2k each voting on these boards. Many of our companies are experimenting with payment models -- Tipjoy, Ideeli, IILWY, Covestor, SomeEcards ... there is money to be made here -- from payments to item sales to t shirts. Businesses to be built. br /br /strongThe elephants will dance/strongbr /Pieces are going to move on the chess board. Big pieces. This shouldn't be your focus, but things are going to have change around your business, and they might affect you. Yahoo is going to be sold or bought. Ebay will either be sold or bought or broken up. Facebook is going to have to change (cut spending, focus on revenue) or it will be bought. Same for Linked in. Microsoft, News Corp. TWX and other media companies will be buyers. What does Google do in this cycle -- freeze or be bold? The newspapers -- do they act out of fear or freeze up? Telco's and cell cos; cable cos -- do they jump upstream?/p pWhy should you care? Because as these pieces move around the chess board, they may well affect your future. So watch carefully. If Paypal -- which by some estimates is now 50% of the value of Ebay -- gets spun out of ebay, then they will accelerate services beyond advertising. Etc. etc. So consider the moves the elephants make. The equation for them, public or private, has changed. br /strongbr /Openness/strongbr /I think this cycle is going to drive another significant shift in how open and interconnected the Web is. This is good news for you, and this is bad news for the Facebooks of the world, who tried to replicate the walled garden strategy of Web 1.0./p pThink about what happened through the last cycle. Start with AWS. In the 1990s, Internet companies had to own everything top to tail. Today you can use Amazon and other services to pop up a new box for hundreds of dollars, if that. Thats a huge shift, and it's also a shift towards interdependency./p pWe are all now dependent on the Amazon's of the world for parts of our infrastructure. I think this turn of the cycle is going to drive a lot more openness. This in turn ties to the market figuring out how to rapidly establish bottoms-up standards. This is about working with others and figuring out how to do things without having to do all the work. br /br /strongbetaday/strong/p pNext week at betaday [Betaworks' portfolio companies presenting to investors] will be a great opportunity to present your companies to many potential business partners. These partners now more than ever will want to know how your business scales, earns revenues and profits. Take this opportunity to have clear responses to these questions. There will be a greater emphasis now on this, so be prepared to specifically and persuasively answer these questions -- before they get asked. Think about your burn, how you can do more with less. Think three years out, not six months./p div style="text-align: left;"strongBibliography/strongbr / br /a href="http://bit.ly/22BJrj"Silicon Valley Finds It Isn't Immune From Credit Crisis - WSJ.com/a/div div style="text-align: left;"br //div div style="text-align: left;" div div style="margin: 0px;"a href="http://bit.ly/3BbqV3"Sequoia Capital deck startups and the economic downturn/a/div /div br /a href="http://bit.ly/1fVGrx"Inside Details of Sequoia Capital's Doomsday Meeting With its Companies - G.../a/div div style="text-align: left;"br //div div style="text-align: left;" div div style="margin: 0px;"a href="http://bit.ly/26hbqA"VC dean Alan Patricof warns against panic, urges entrepreneurs to seize the.../a/div /div /div div style="text-align: left;"br /a href="http://bit.ly/dcl0T"Master of 500 Hats: Fear is the Mind Killer of the Silicon Valley Entrepren.../abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/4DsSUw" Angel Investor Ron Conway Emails His Portfolio Companies Over Financial Mel.../abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/1wE8K2"Benchmark Capital Advises Startups To Conserve Capital, Look For Opportunit.../abr / br /a href="http://bit.ly/ppHcO"How Bad Will The Ad Market Get? Time To Get Out The History Books/abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/FvwGK" News Corp. Estimates Cut in advertising/a/div div style="text-align: left;"br //div div style="text-align: left;"strongSee Also:/strong a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/vcs-angels-to-startups-look-out-for-that-meteor-that-just-hit-you-"Sorry Startups. Party's Over/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/sequoia-s-startup-advice-save-cash-slash-costs-stay-alive"Sequoia's Startup Advice: Save Cash, Slash Costs, Stay Alive/abr /br //div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/xux2TgVAJ-ODLDxfqS6pVNRHyBQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/xux2TgVAJ-ODLDxfqS6pVNRHyBQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=08n8tuMK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=08n8tuMK" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=SSCEJeNj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=0UJ2pj8F"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=L49DHewq"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=L49DHewq" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=TxJVMPHC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=sORQFiY5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=qCKPeitz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=JLF6VWte"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/tvxFELeN_Ko" height="1" width="1"/

Category: Games
Released: Oct 11, 2008
Price: Free

Description:
If you're looking for a fun, free Four in a Row game - look no further. Four Free is the first free, full-featured Four in a Row game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. 4 in a Row is a simple game in which two players drop tokens into a grid, each trying to line up four tokens in a row. Many people know it from the Parker Brothers classic Connect 4. Four Free supports one player and two player gameplay, so you can play against another human or against your iPhone. If you're really bored, you can even put the game in computer vs. computer mode and watch your iPhone play itself. The AI for one player mode includes three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard, so you can play against a computer player that matches your skill level. Other game features include: configurable player names, a scoreboard showing games won for each player, killer graphics, and exciting sound effects. Four Free is supported by unobtrusive banner advertising. Please click on the ads if you are interested so we can continue offering this application for free.

Website: http://www.optimesoftware.com
Support Website: http://www.optimesoftware.com

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: Four Free

The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before its shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.br[a href=http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/army-ordering-p.html title=linklink/a] [a href=http://digg.com/hardware/Army_Orders_Pain_Ray_Trucks_Report_Potential_for_Death title=moremore/a]

The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.

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Category: Audio Books br / Subcategory: Mysterybr / Quality: MP3/64Kbpsbr / Language: Englishbr / Uploaded by: Lunanbr / Size: 456.24 MBbr /

IGN a pu tester Saints Row 2.Il apparaît que cela ne sera pas le "GTA killer" mais une alternative à GTA.L'expérience de jeu sera très réjouissante. IGN lui attribue une note de 8.2 / 10. A noter tout...

From the day when it was first announced, Mahalo has not always received the most positive of reactions. Many numbered the days of Jason Calacanis’ human edited search engine saying that it would never works. Personally, while I thought the idea was interesting, I didn’t think that with all the other players in the search field that Mahalo had much of a chance.

However, that general impression may have to be re-looked at given the moves that Mahalo took yesterday on their site. In the past the site may have been centered around human edited search, but the Mahalo team discovered something as they watch the traffic around the site. Apparently there was a core userbase of Mahalo that were constantly refreshing the Mahalo homepage in order to check for new featured links and related guide pages for the subjects. So the Mahalo team took this idea and has remade the main page into a news aggregator that doesn’t just cover the tech industry but the things that regular web surfers will be interested in.

Along with that, Mahalo has also added a liveblogging section which displays hot ticket headlines of events and news as it happens. As with the core search part of Mahalo, these two new sections are also added and edited by real live humans rather than relying on RSS feeds or search algorithms. With the liveblog part each of the headlines is associated with specific tags (or sections) such as Gossip, Sports, Politics and Fun among others. The idea here is that these sections will later also be broken out into sections within Mahalo. Right now only selected text in the headline is linked to content on Mahalo while the Read link takes you to the actual article.

Now this is all neat and interesting, but for me this isn’t the real hook that could set Mahalo apart. What they have done with another feature of the liveblogging section is what just about every search engine other than maybe Google has been trying to do: try to create a community around the liveblogging section that then can be mixed into its search results property. On the extended page of the liveblogging they have added a uStream feed that when live will allow the people who are editing; or liveblogging, the news to interact with the people on the site.

Using something like this you will be able to see what new hot news is being posted, chat with other people about the news in the uStream chatroom, and be able to interact with those posting the news - or possibly even pointing them to something you think is important thereby adding personal value to the system. In some ways I almost see Mahalo as becoming a hybrid between a multi-author blog and a news aggregator, with a killer search ability. This is what I think might set Mahalo apart from other search engines.

By combining live news, communication and search Mahalo could be showing us an interesting and maybe a better direction in which search could be headed. Maybe I’ll start using it more now because I find this approach interesting and refreshing.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Mahalo Launches Multi-Profiles; Why Didn’t I Think of That?
Mahalo Follow Offers Poor Comparative Search Tools
Veronica Belmont to Leave Mahalo Daily
Facebook Now Supported on Mahalo Follow
Mahalo Social: Search Engine Becomes a Social Network
Mahalo Launches New Toolbar And User Stubs
Mahalo Finally Growing?

At first glance, The Beatles' legend and populist Venezuelan leader may seem like they are worlds apart. But ask them how they feel about Big Macs, and the gap narrows. Significantly.

Evidently, the former is hoping mad that images of The Beatles are being used in Liverpool-area McDonald's to sell fast food. Meanwhile, the latter has shut down 118 of the golden arches over tax irregularities.

"What sort of morons do McDonald's think Beatles fans are?" McCartney spokesman Geoff Baker complained to New Musical Express on Saturday. "It's ridiculous and insulting to use images to peddle hamburgers. Fans should boycott McDonald's -- and not just in Liverpool."

McCartney probably has the biggest beef, pardon the pun: He has been a stone-cold vegetarian for decades. As for Chavez, he has been waging a campaign to deemphasize American business within his geopolitical domain: He has shut down McDonald's before for failing to follow Venezuela's tax rules, as well as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. But if you think that Chavez is trying to sever financial ties with America, think again. Last year, trade between Venezuela and the United States grew to $50 billion, the majority of which were oil sales to America. It seems that we need Chavez's fossil fuels more than he needs our Big Macs.

As for Macca, McDonald's defended its promotional strategies to the NME as an attempt to "acknowledge the outstanding contribution The Beatles made to both local and global culture." Um, do fries go with that shakedown?

Photo: Wikipedia

See also:

• Hugo Chavez Haters Love His Music Programs
• Beatles, Cirque Doc All Together Now Hits the Screen
• McCartney to Israel, Palestine: Give Peace a Chance
• Speaking of The Beatles' Auditory Cheesecake...
• Sad Anniversary: The Beatles Bid Adieu to TV
• John Lennon's Killer Denied Parole (Again)
• The Day The Beatles Fled Imelda Marcos
• Report: Beatles Eye Rock Band, Guitar Hero
• He Met The Walrus: Animated Lennon Interview
• Give Peace a Price Tag

We are witnessing either an epic financial meltdown or a long overdue resetting of existing business practices and the hollow markets they create. Or, perhaps we’re experiencing both of these phenomena. Either way, it has the nation gripped with fear, uncertainty, and an unsettling eruption of questionable advice confusing everyone, everywhere.

While the floor is crumbling for many industries much in the same way it did for Silicon Valley during the dotbomb years, the sky isn’t necessarily falling on the startup industry – at least not for those with marketable technology or products, dedicated and capable teams, an executable business plan, and access to the resources necessary to help it reach users and customers.

For those startups that are building and marketing something of value for consumers or businesses, there is much work to do. While there is always a need to attract mainstream users, this isn’t the time to stretch or over-commit resources to hit everyone all at once. Branding is an expensive proposition, one that requires time, capital, diligence, dedicated teams, enthusiastic customers, and patience. As counter intuitive as it may seem, this is exactly the right time to market into the echo chamber to earn the support of influentials who will create significant, concentrated brand visibility and momentum to carry you forward.

Your business can grow with the groundswell and doesn’t necessarily require the instant adoption by the masses in order to succeed in the short term.

Usually, when the economy slides, the first natural reaction is to cut expenses, conserve cash, and hunker-down to weather the storm.  All good advice.  But don’t forget also that this could be your time to shine, albeit, in a strategic and intelligent way.

Great entrepreneurs build value and market-share in down markets. They go to work seven days a week and the(y) breakout when other folks check out. — Jason Calacanis

Now’s the time to get your head in the game and focus on what it is you do, and go do it better than anyone else. You’re either on the field or you’re on the sidelines.

Any company that intentionally pulls itself from the radar screen of their customers will be absent from customer decisions and referrals. In the process, you create a frictionless opportunity for your competitors to swoop in and fill the void.

There are always customers making decisions, so make sure that you’re part of the equation and process, wherever they go for information and insight.

Influence and adoption historically have migrated from the edge to the center. Or using a more common example, customers and word-of-mouth referrals travel from left to right along a bell curve that starts with Innovators and Early Adopters, peaks with the Early Majority and the Late Majority, and finally permeates with reaction from Laggards.

If you dissect the art and science of technology marketing using a car as a simple metaphor, your product serves as the chassis, your cash as the fuel, Social Media, Interactive/Web, Sales, SEO, and PR as the accelerator, marketing strategy and execution as the gears, RPMs as a market indicator for listening and responding, the speedometer to convey inertia, and you, as founding executive, sitting in the driver’s seat, steering and controlling the entire operation.

Marketing to the echo chamber, believe it or not, is how you get that car rolling, starting everything in first gear. Appealing to those who can help spark word of mouth is how you can accelerate, gain enough speed to shift into second, and subsequent higher gears, and attract new users and evangelists along the way, growing in distance and reach at every turn. It is the echo chamber that can help you efficiently gain velocity in order to progressively reach greater audiences and command additional financing and also revenue in the process. With its support and assistance, it is almost like starting with a colossal push.

You have to start by engaging those who’ll get it, and in turn, share it with their peers. It’s an ongoing process that strengthens with each cycle.

Hopefully you are building your business in a way that is independent of the stock market.
— Kevin Ryan

The world doesn’t flock to new things en masse. It takes a focused and progressive strategy that evolves and matures over time. In a down economy, this is non-negotiable.

Digg and Twitter are among some of the best examples of how alpha users can help promote a company or service by embracing these new solutions and religiously demonstrating why they are pervasive and useful. And, emphatic users also contribute to the community building process, assisting in the translation of the value proposition for different markets as well as enticing and compelling their peers to join them, which offsets and relieves the company from carrying the bulk of the responsibility for promotion and guerilla marketing.

But, where are Digg and Twitter in respect to the adoption cycle? They’re not as far along as you think judging by the buzz and permeation of your social graph. These companies still have oceans to swim until they become household brands. But, that’s OK. They’re building a business, cultivating legions of dedicated user communities, evolving and improving their product, and still conserving cash. Remember, it took brands such as eBay, Youtube, Google, and Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars and armies of enthusiasts and partners to achieve saturation – and many would argue that there’s still much work to be done.

I would bet on any company that earned the support of innovators and early adopters and took the time to listen to feedback in order to iterate based on real world needs, preferences, pains, and new ideas.

Without influence, you’re going to spend precious resources, more than you can afford, convincing people that they should pay attention. Peer-to-peer marketing is priceless and still your best bet for having a shot, and more importantly, making a long-term impact.

But you first need a spark, something to start that avalanche that grows as it races downhill.

The echo chamber is bigger than we think or give it credit for. In fact, think of the echo chamber as its own bell curve. Most of the blogs and users that naturally come to mind, may reside on the left side, leaving a wide array of technology enthusiasts to uncover and pursue.

Innovators and early adopters are global citizens and do not solely reside in Silicon Valley. Figure out who your market is today, tomorrow, next month, and set goals for user acquisition so that you can tweak your product and tailor your messages to those very people, as they’ll uniquely connect to your story, and also share it differently among their peers, as it traverses across the bell curve.

Remember, reporters, bloggers and online tastemakers (aka trendsetters) who spotlight innovation can send tens of thousands of new and loyal users to you almost instantly. I’m not just referring to unique visits of those who sign up, test things out, and then leave to try the next shiny service. When done right, the echo chamber can generate real world interest and support. It is these very users who tell you everything about what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve. These same individuals and networks also augment and complement your marketing efforts by legitimizing you’re products, associating credibility and providing pseudo endorsements, and in turn, giving you unprecedented access to their invaluable and highly connected networks of early adopter friends.

This is the time to focus on user acquisition. This is edgework. Everything starts with an intimate understanding of the markets you’re trying to reach and an even deeper connection to the peers, voices, and other channels that influence them. Most of you are not marketing iPhones, gaming consoles, premium spirits, or new music artists. At the very least, you are redefining how people communicate, collaborate, connect, and ultimately work.

There’s a prevailing necessity to educate your markets and introduce not just new products and services, but also change the daily routines of everyday people.

Therefore the goal to race from zero to 60 and hit mass penetration immediately is not necessarily the primary goal. If we look at business development and communications as a series of strategic stages, we realize that there are focused activities that we must pursue and smaller, reachable voices we must reach and convince to help us carry and adapt our story from stage to stage – each time, addressing the needs and pain points of the individual, respective groups.

Of course, as you learn, internalize feedback, change, adapt, and engage with your markets, the foundation for your business solidifies and begins to afford and beget expansion. It is at this point in time, when you can continue to expand your focus and reach to attract and inspire users residing outside of the echo chamber.

Nothing beats a killer product idea and an impressive, objective, and focused team to carry it forward. Expectations count and will determine how you channel information and progress. Think too big and you’ll miss your target and burn through resources before you can ever earn any significant market traction. Aim too low and the market will pass you by.

In this volatile economic climate, the echo chamber can be your direct connection to success, or at the very least, help to kickstart market adoption of your products. It is a global incubator designed to help you grow, gain momentum, and ultimately propel your business across the bell curve to appeal to and attract a wider, active base of customers.

We live in interesting times and it’s up to us, and only us, to define our future.

(Photo by Wetwebworks).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

p style=text-align: center;a href=http://storage.canalblog.com/69/85/110219/31128355.jpg target=_blankimg height=191 alt=untitled src=http://storage.canalblog.com/69/85/110219/31128355_p.jpg width=450 border=0 //a/p p style=text-align: justify;Cest bien un peu dommage que Romero lisse carrément son style dans ce film, mais le peu dintérêt de la mise en scène est largement compensé par un scénario vraiment bon. Un écrivain en manque de fric se met à écrire sous pseudo des romans de gare un peu gore ; quand, honteux de cette sous-littérature, il décide de laisser tomber cette quot;mauvaise moitiéquot; de sa production, celle-ci sincarne en chair et en os sous les traits dun serial-killer qui va tout faire pour rester en vie. /p p style=text-align: justify;Je confirme : ça rappelle le génial emIn the Mouth of Madness/em de Carpenter, et il ne fait aucun doute que ce a href=http://storage.canalblog.com/48/68/110219/31128371.jpg target=_blankimg height=176 alt=1 src=http://storage.canalblog.com/48/68/110219/31128371_p.jpg width=300 border=0 style=FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px; //adernier va beaucoup plus loin que Romero. Il nempêche que cette brillante idée, au départ abstraite mais que Romero arrive à rendre très nette par son scénario, déploie tranquillement, 2 heures durant, des tas de ramifications intelligentes : pouvoir de lécrivain, théorie brillante sur linspiration artistique, puissance de la pression populaire pour rendre concrets les fantasmes dun artiste, réflexion sur lintimité de lécrivain, auto-portrait touchant de Romero lui-même qui réfléchit sur sa place dans le cinéma de genre... Tout ça atteint une profondeur inattendue, et il arrive à sapproprier magnifiquement cette sorte de mea culpa de Stephen King (auteur du roman). Tout en conservant à son film un aspect populaire, avec son lot de suspense, de scènes-climax et deffets spéciaux obligatoires, Romero dévie discrètement vers le journal intime, et livre une belle réflexion sur lui-même. /p p style=text-align: justify;Au passage, il perd beaucoup de son style : peu de moments vraiment spectaculaires, une photo un peu passe-partout et déjà vue dans tous les films fantastiques des années 80-90 (lécole Spielberg), beaucoup a href=http://storage.canalblog.com/70/13/110219/31128384.jpg target=_blankimg height=209 alt=DARK_HALF src=http://storage.canalblog.com/70/13/110219/31128384_p.jpg width=300 border=0 style=FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px; //ade longueurs (une introduction totalement inutile, notamment, et qui éloigne du sujet), quelques effets poétiques à la con là où on attendait du cradingue et de luppercut (des passereaux sensés conduire lâme des morts dans lau-delà blabla). On aura peut-être du mal à reconnaître le cinéaste quasi-punk des débuts. Mais strongemThe Dark Half/em/strong reste franchement touchant par beaucoup dautres aspects, notamment par cette volonté de se rattacher à toute une école du quot;cinéma de genre intelloquot; (Hitchcock bien sûr, mais aussi Tourneur). Le film est une ode à limagination, aussi malsaine soit-elle, et donc un hommage au film dhorreur en ce quil met à jour les fantasmes inavoués de leurs auteurs et des spectateurs. Romero nous suggère de laisser parler cette part des ténèbres enfouie en nous ; il le fait avec un peu trop de frilosité formelle, mais avec une belle intelligence décriture. Il faudra attendre le Carpenter, 2 ans plus tard, pour avoir le vrai film sur le pouvoir des masses, mais emThe Dark Half/em en est une jolie antichambre./p

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Static-X va sortir un combo CD/DVD intitulé "Cannibal Killers Live" le 14 Octobre, on vous propose de mâter un premier extrait avec le titre "Canni...img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Visual-Music/~4/417652907" height="1" width="1"/