TechCrunch is covering a story about the latest Perq that Apple is offering to their employees:
As device makers like RIM, Samsung and Nokia incorporate NFC technology into their mobile devices, Apple has been radio silent on what its plans will be in mobile commerce and payments. But a deal that is getting announced today could be a clue to one area where Apple might see a big opportunity.
Apple has signed on with Pirq, a startup from Seattle, to offer food and drink daily deals to its employees in the Bay Area, with the service working by way of an iPhone app, location-based technology, and a Microsoft Tag code to redeem the discounts. A source tells TechCrunch that this is the first part of a potential “four phase” implementation that could see Apple offering a deals service out to all iPhone users.
It’s a pretty interesting concept. Having worked in a downtown urban area for a number of years, something like this could be a really valuable perq for employees…
Apple has released iOS version 5.1.1, a minor update to their mobile device operating system.
Release notes from Apple note the following changes:
- Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
- Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
- Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
- Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
- Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase
Updates can be made via iTunes to your Apple devices – or over the air via the update function.
At the end of last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Arianana Huffington’s role at AOL had been greatly reduced:
Arianna Huffington acknowledged Thursday that her portfolio at AOL Inc. AOL +0.95% is being scaled back to include only the Huffington Post, undoing a structure put in place when her website was acquired by AOL last year.
While I don’t think anyone can deny the success that Arianna has had with The Huffington Post, it’s clear that her management style leading other aspects of AOL’s business has been questionable – particularly her handling of the situation with leading technology blog TechCrunch last year. That mess led to the departure of leading blogger Michael Harrington along with most of the editors, key writers, and staff of the industry-leading blog in the following weeks.
Chris Brogan posted about 20 blog topics to get you unstuck last week.
Chris writes:
I’m often asked how I come up with so much content so often and so consistently. One truth is that I write all the time, and that my discipline of writing all the time means I’m more practiced and skilled.
Here’s a few:
- What challenges are my potential customers facing. Do I have any advice for them?
- What have I read lately? What points were interesting? Can I add more to it?
- What bugs me? Can I write about another way to approach it?
I have a long list of private tags in del.icio.us where I keep ideas and interesting links that I can blog about down the road when the topic hits me – or when I’m stuck.
How do you get unstuck when you’re in a blogging slump?
Jon Bishop highlights 7 Awesome Twitter Plugins for WordPress.
Here’s a look at one of his recommendations:
TweetStats is a nifty little plugin that works alongside the TweetBacks plugin. It ultimately allows you to add a widget to the sidebar of your most recent and most popular tweets. I’m hoping this is the beginning of a new generation of plugins working together to present the best content to it’s readers.
We use several of Jon’s recommendations on our blogs – well worth exploring his post to see if any of these will work for your needs.
In an article published on Friday in Slate, Farhad Manjoo takes a look at the lolcat and failblog industries:
Most surprisingly, lolcats makes money. A few months after they started the site, Nakagawa and Unebasami sold it to Pet Holdings Inc., a Web startup based in Seattle. Pet Holdings markets memes: In addition to I Can Has Cheezburger, the company also runs Failblog, which collects photographic instances of spectacular flops; Engrish Funny, a chronicle of poorly translated signs; GraphJam, in which people try to distill life into PowerPoint-type slides (such as “Relationship Between Money and Problems,” an ascending, 45-degree line graph); and Once Upon a Win, a trove of awesome, faddy things from the past (friendship bracelets, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, videos of Weird Al). Pet Holdings didn’t invent any of these ideas. Instead, it sifted through the daily river of ephemeral Internet buzz and bought or built sites around the few memes that seemed to possess universal, permanent appeal. In the process, the company has managed something that few others online—not even YouTube—have been able to pull off. It turns memes into a profitable business.
An inspiring and interesting startup story with alot of details that I never knew…
A slightly older post from January 2009, but still a good one. Paul Stamatiou writes about 100 Applications and Services that he uses each day:
It took me a while to get used to using something other than simply Twitter.com, but I have fallen in love with TweetDeck. The Adobe AIR-based application does have its obvious performance drawbacks and crashes at least once per day, so there are better alternatives. EventBox is becoming popular but I did not like the RSS aggregator-esque interface when I tried it out.
As you’ll find, it’s not quite 100 services, but it is a pretty good list and interesting insights into how one person successfully uses social media and other development tools within a startup.
In a sometimes humorous read, but one that I think is very true, Media Caffeine outlines the 14 Types of Twitter Personalities:
The Clever Purist will answer the question just as stated. The difference between them and The Purist is that they put a spin on their tweets to make their actions more entertaining or interesting than they really are. These users can accumulate a strong following once they are noticed as other users see them as adding value a notch above others in their stream.
That’s just one of the fourteen types – you can read more over at Media Caffeine.
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