‘Nets Big Thing

Archive for March, 2009

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone sent out an Email earlier this afternoon to a number of users who had previously enabled ‘autofollowing’, stating that the company is planning to shut the feature down. Read the rest of this entry »

Convincing people to pay for nothing, or rather for things with zero marginal cost to produce, is a great business model—in theory. In practice, there are so few examples to point to, and most of them are overseas, such as Helsinki-based teen virtual world Habbo. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember what came in between printed encyclopedias and Wikipedia? For many, the answer is Microsoft Encarta, which was distributed starting in the 90s via CD-ROM and more recently on the Web via MSN. Today, Microsoft announced that it’s discontinuing Encarta later this year, offering symbolic confirmation that Wikipedia is the world’s definitive reference guide. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter user BreatheHeavy and owner of BreatheHeavy.com, a Britney Spears’ fansite has been forced to close it.

Britney Spears‘ father has forced the closure of one of the pop superstar’s top fansites – because it keeps breaching copyright rules by posting unauthorized photos, lyrics and videos online.

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The past few days have seen the alleged leaks of a couple batches of Windows Mobile 7 screenshots, suggesting Microsoft’s already hard at work on the successor to 6.5 — something we’ve heard in the past, and given the state of 6.x, a rumor that isn’t difficult to believe. Read the rest of this entry »

Slap chop to the face! Vince Shlomi, aka the ShamWow Guy, aka You’re Gonna Love My Nuts, was “arrested last month on a felony battery charge following a violent confrontation with a prostitute in his South Beach hotel room,” reports the Smoking Gun.

Shlomi says the prostitute bit his tongue while kissing him, so he had to punch her to get her to let go. We guess that’s one of those things you learn in the real world, like how to survive a bear attack or how to fend off a shark. The police, however, say both of them were drunk, which sounds even more believable. The website reports that prosecutors decided not to file formal charges against either party this month.

“ShamWow Guy In Slap, Chop Bust” [The Smoking Gun] (Thanks to Maya!)

People have been whispering about a new web application in development called Hunch. Today, Flickr co-founder and Hunch head honcho Caterina Fake divulged some more details about the new project on her blog.

The new project aims to become a site that can help anyone make a decision about anything. The way it will do this is through the application of decision trees that are created by contributing users. Using decision trees in expert systems is nothing new, but applying that idea to a crowdsourcing model might possibly be a stroke of genius. Think Aardvark meets Wikipedia and you start to get the idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Paris Hilton has been left stunned and “scared” after she was allegedly abused by a DJ’s bodyguard in Miami, Florida in the early hours of Friday.

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Guess what isn’t super-sized? Digital distribution revenues for filmmakers, apparently.

AUSTIN, Texas–The Internet and the rise of online video have meant a plethora of new options for independent filmmakers. But, as has been well-publicized, the money just isn’t there yet. A panel at the South by Southwest …

A short poem Elvis Presley wrote about a dead bird has sold at auction for a staggering $20,000.

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