I have a question to ask those of? you who are married or in long term relationships: How did you meet your mate? At work? A first date? Speed dating? A club/bar? Hold that thought.
For those who are single, how would you like to meet your significant other through Facebook? Now, through one ‘ask’ button, you can ask about someone’s relationship status. And you can share your response with the asker, even in public. This will apply to those who leave their relationship status blank. This ‘ask’ button for relationships is already gaining popularity across the US. It’s expected to make it’s presence known in Europe in the next few weeks.
Wow! I don’t know what to say. There’s a part of me waiting for a feel good story to come out of this. A story that says someone met their soul mate through the ‘ask’ button, they get married, and lived happily ever after. Or someone meets their best friend through the ‘ask’ button and an eternal companionship is born. If it were a perfect world, it would come to that. Obviously, this world is far from perfect.? I’m waiting for a story of a stalking situation to get started from this. I’m waiting for a bullying situation to get started from this ‘ask’ button. I’m waiting for a relationship that started from the ‘ask’ button to go tragically wrong. I hope I’m wrong and I hope I’m over-exaggerating. But what do you think? Is Facebook’s ask button a blessing or curse waiting to happen?
Net Neutrality: It’s the hot button issue of 2014, sort of like the NSA was the hot button issue of 2013. There has been protest nationwide about the issue. And it seems the powers that be are listening.
It’s been announced online companies received lots on airspace specifically for unlicensed use.? They got a couple of channels for TV airways too. To put it in layman’s terms, they’ve allowed construction for working class housing in the richest neighborhood in town. A TV airwaves auction could bring in $20 billion. While this was a huge step in the right direction, especially for Internet companies. But the controversy surrounding net neutrality is far from over.
FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Chairman Tom Wheeler seems to be between a rock and a hard place. He’s been criticized by everyone. He first said he was cool with Internet companies charging more for faster service. Then came the protest. The protest got more intense: It went from activists bombarding the FCC with angry emails, letters, and phone calls to camping outside headquarters, causing a scene. Now it seems like Wheeler is backing off, or at least backing down. Now he’s saying things like ‘we’re looking at every way to protect an open and free Internet’. I hope so. One of the problem is net neutrality is so complex to understand. And let’s not get started on issues like Comcast merging with NBC Universal. What side are you on in the net neutrality debate?
Three years ago, Square Launch was launched. It was supposed to make payments between merchants and consumers easier. It didn’t take off, but Square is at it again.
This is where Square Order comes in. This app allows consumers to place orders, and they can pay at coffee shops, cafes, or at other eateries. The goal is people will order from this app, and the app will tell them how long the wait is. They can go to the coffee shop, cafe, diner, etc., pick up the order, and skip the line. Don’t go looking to use the Square Order app just in Anywhere, USA. There are only a few dozen eateries that use this app, and all of them are either in New York City and San Francisco.
Square Launch was supposed to be the next big thing in apps. But it didn’t happen that way, did it? I doubt it’s going to with Square Order. Look at the competition. Grub Hub and Groupon do virtually the same thing, except they deliver the food to you. With them, forget waiting in line, you don’t even have to go to the shop to pick up your food. Square Order insists there will be more merchants and more cities, but we don’t know where or when. From what I read, it’s easy to use and it is convenient. Would you use Square Order, assuming it makes it to your area?
There are archives for TV shows, newspapers, radio shows, and other media. Did you know there was one for the Internet?
The Internet archive is called Wayback Machine. It was launched in 2001. You can find Web pages from early as autumn 1996 and a recent as literally yesterday. Recently, Wayback Machine just celebrated it’s 400 billionth archived webpage. But it’s done more than just give us great memories. Back in October 2013, during the government shutdown, it provided access to government sites that were shut down. Someone could just go to a gov’t site archive from literally the day before and get the info they needed.
Other than that, Wayback Machine is just fun to look at. When you look at Web pages from the late 1990s and early 2000s, even Yahoo and Google, you can’t help but marvel at how far the Web has come. I’ve seen sites from the dot com era. I’ve seen sites that I forgot even existed. I’ve read through some of the biggest news stories of the last 18 years. I’ve relived some of the greatest sports moments and celebrity scandals of that time. I’m so thankful for Wayback Machine because it’s important to keep this history alive not only for us, but all the geeks coming after us. What memories are waiting for you?
Snapchat is one of the most popular message apps around. What makes it so popular is that you can send videos, messages, and other posts and it disappears seconds later. At least, that’s what we thought.
According to various reports, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is accusing Snapchat of collecting users’ information without their knowledge or approval. They say Snapchat failed to tell users their messages could be saved without users’ knowledge. The FTC adds video snaps aren’t encrypted when it gets to the recipient. Back in January, Snapchat was hacked and over 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers were compromised. Snapchat is agreeing to settle. Snapchat hadn’t admitted to these charges…but they haven’t denied them either.
I’m going to see where this goes, but I’m not liking it. I find it ironic a government agency is calling out a private corporation. Remember, around this time last year, it was discovered the NSA was checking out our computers and digging in our smartphones. But I can’t let Snapchat off the hook either. If they had been up front with their consumers this situation would’ve been a lot more tolerable. Why did it take a FTC investigation to bring this to light? I’ve already heard people say they’re never going to use Snapchat again. That goes to show you it only takes one breach of trust to destroy the whole relationship. Will you continue to use Snapchat?
Yahoo is one of the oldest and most valued websites in the world. It’s worth tens of billions. Or so it seems.
At a Tech Crunch conference in New York City today, CEO Marissa Meyer was in the hot seat. It was pointed out to her that, yes, Yahoo was worth in the tens of billions. But when you add it’s shares in Yahoo Japan and Chinese wholesale website Alibaba, the mega-conglomerate’s value is near zero. Meyer replied the Yahoo is just undervalued. She stuck up for her company to the core. She praised her talented staff and insists the company is running a lot better since she became CEO. Yahoo did take a beating in the stock market, but then again, most tech companies did. But that’s another story.
But let’s look at the big picture. Before Meyer took over as CEO, Yahoo was in deep trouble. But she cleaned it up, changed office policies, and turned it into an efficient machine! From the reports I’ve read, morale is definitely higher. Yahoo stocks are much higher than they were last year. As far as these international deals, sometime these ventures take time. Okay, sometimes they fall flat, but I say give it a chance. Are things really looking that bad for Yahoo?
