With a bit of foresight and a decent amount of luck, a small-time internet investor can rake in an absurd amount of dough through ‘domain squatting’. It’s a pretty clever tactic—register a catchy, original domain name (one that’s based on a current event, pop culture icon, or spelled like a popular, existing site), then you wait and wait until offers start to come in from people/companies that absolutely insist on having your domain name as their own. Fairly Simple. Just don’t do what one California-based domain squatter did, and register a domain name based on the perfect season that your favorite team was supposed to have. FAIL! Read the rest of this entry »

Information Architects didn’t just create a simple list of the world’s best websites; they took things a bit further and translated the concept to map form. Their ‘2008 Web Trend Map’ plots 300 of the world’s most influential and successful websites across a map of the Tokyo subway system. You’re seriously losing if you don’t have at least 5 of these sites listed in your bookmarks. Nah, I’m kidding. But take a look at this clickable version of the map here.

Today, The Washington Post launched “The Root”—an online magazine geared towards African American readers. Founded by writer and Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Post Co. Chairman Donald E. Graham, The Root looks to follow in the footsteps of Slate Magazine (an online magazine founded by Microsoft, and later bought by The Post in 2004), however, featuring news and commentary from a black perspective.

The Root is a daily online magazine that provides thought-provoking commentary on today’s news from a variety of black perspectives. The site also hosts an interactive genealogical section to trace one’s ancestry through AfricanDNA.com, a DNA testing site co-founded by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who is also The Root’s Editor-In-Chief. The Root aims to be an unprecedented departure from traditional American journalism, raising the profile of black voices in mainstream media and engaging anyone interested in black culture around the world.

Post Launches Site With African American Focus

Rudy Gay, of the Memphis Grizzlies, is counting on a bit of crowd participation to win this year’s NBA Slam Dunk Competition. He’s asking fans to upload their “sickest” dunk ideas to YouTube, and on the night of the event (Feb. 16th), he plans to incorporate the winning submission into his dunk routine.

Sounds like a great idea, although there seems to be no mention of a prize for the winner (what’s good with that?). Hopefully this allows Rudy to bring some much needed excitement and originality back to the competition.

Some Four huge announcements out of San Francisco today as Steve jobs delivered his annual keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo. Sadly, there’s still no word on an official IM client for the iPhone, however, 3rd party apps should be coming soon –software developer kits are set for release in February. Now, let’s take a look at today’s announcements:

#1 - Macbook Air:

Apple today introduced the world’s thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. It measures an unprecedented 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. In addition to a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, MacBook Air offers a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, letting users pinch, rotate and swipe. The new notebook is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and it includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Starting at just $1,799, MacBook Air begins shipping in two weeks.

#2 - Time Capsule

A backup appliance that works seamlessly with Time Machine to automatically and wirelessly back up everything on one or more Macs running Mac OS X Leopard, Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. “Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voilà—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. When it ships in February, Time Capsule will be available in models featuring 500GB and 1TB hard drives for $299 and $499, respectively.

#3 - iTunes Movie Rentals

Available today with the free download of iTunes 7.6, iTunes Movie Rentals allows customers to rent movies for as little as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. Featuring movies from all the major movie studios—20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema—iTunes Movie Rentals is expected to offer more than 1,000 movie titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles featuring stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Movies can be rented directly from a widescreen TV using Apple TV.

#4 - iPhone/iPod Touch Updates

iPhone Software Update 1.1.3, a free software update available today via iTunes 7.5 or later, brings significant new features to iPhone. After installing the update, iPhone customers will be able to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application; text message multiple people in one message; create Web Clips for their favorite websites; customize their home screen; and watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.

With the installation of this major software upgrade, the best iPod becomes even more: the world’s best Wi-Fi mobile device. The upgrade—available from iTunes for just $19.99—adds five more great mobile applications to iPod touch: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, and Notes. It also includes such new features as Web Clips, a customizable home screen, and the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals on iPod touch.

Genoco has developed this cool but anti-social App for the iPhone that basically allows you to order and purchase your favorite Starbucks drinks without having deal with the line or its employees. Not sure about how I feel about this just yet. All I can say is the future is NOW. Here’s their write up:

“Get your coffee fix, fast!” iPhone/iPod Touch application that allows the users to purchase their favorite Starbucks drink without waiting in line. This application also includes QuickPay, a swipe transaction system using semacode technology.

Read the rest of this entry »

Early prediction for 2008: This will be the year of IPTV!
Earlier today, Comcast, the nation’s leader in entertainment, information and communications product/services, officially launched Fancast.com. It’s the company’s latest crack at the IPTV game, and what many may view as the first real competitor to News Corps /NBC’s IPTV site, Hulu.com (although I’m not quite sure that this is the case). Much like Hulu, members of Fancast have access to a massive library of full length TV shows and movies from an array of national and cable networks. As an added bonus, members will soon be able to control the functions of their Comcast DVR directly from the site. Cool stuff. In the meantime, go register and take a look at things for yourself!

The iPhone, Halo 3, Slingbox, Online Gossip, Social Networking…Those are just a few things that made their way onto Business Week’s lists of most important products and trends of 2007.

Tay Zonday returns! This time around he’s back with a new song and video to promote a new drink from Dr. Pepper…and just in case you forgot…*refresh*

The Kindle eBook Reader, by Amazon. eBooks and eBook readers have never really made a huge amount of noise up to this point, but all of that may change after today’s launch of the Kindle. This could very well be the iPod of the book world. Seriously. Books, magazines, newspapers and blogs…anywhere, anytime. Crazy!

Peep some of its features:

-Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.

-Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.

-Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.

-Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

-Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.

-Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times.

-More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post.

R-E-A–DA–BO-OK!