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<title>Haaze.com / rozemiluc / Published News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Chrome, Safari, Office top list for serious bugs]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chrome-safari-office-top-list-for-serious-bugs</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chrome-safari-office-top-list-for-serious-bugs</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chrome-safari-office-top-list-for-serious-bugs</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Chrome was the application with the most number of high-severity vulnerabilities that impacted end users this year, followed bySafari,Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader and Acrobat, andFirefox, according to a list to be released today. Chrome had 76 reported serious vulnerabilities, Safari had 60, Office had 57, Acrobat and Reader had 54, and Firefox had 51, according to Bit9's annual &quot;Dirty Dozen&quot; list. The fact that Chrome is at the top of the list does not necessarily mean it is less secure than other applications, said Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer at Bit9.  &quot;Chrome is the youngest of the browsers out there and is going through the most changes,&quot; he said. &quot;It doesn't mean it's a risky browser.&quot; Rounding out the list were: Sun Java Development Kit (36 reported holes), Adobe Shockwave Player (35), Microsoft Internet Explorer (32), RealNetworks RealPlayer (14), Apple Webkit (9), Adobe Flash Player (8), while Apple QuickTime and Opera were tied in last place with 6 vulnerabilities each. Apple appears on the list three times, &quot;which dispels the myth that Apple is safer&quot; than Windows, Sverdlove said. &quot;They are as vulnerable, if not more so, as Microsoft Windows.&quot; The applications were pulled from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's official vulnerability database. They all had a severity rating of high.  The method of just focusing on the number of reported vulnerabilities is not without controversy. As Mozilla pointed out two years ago, the Bit9 study ignores issues like how quickly the bugs are fixed, and it punishes companies like Google and Mozilla that publicly disclose all vulnerabilities while other companies disclose only publicly discovered holes and not those found internally. It also fails to recognize that some companies lump multiple vulnerabilities into one report in the vulnerability database. In addition, there have been concerns about the quality and presentation of data in the vulnerability databases themselves, as mentioned by Google earlier this year.  Updated at 10:15 a.m. PT with information on complaints about studies based solely on numbers of reported vulnerabilities. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Shopping on Google now includes inventory checks]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shopping-on-google-now-includes-inventory-checks</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shopping-on-google-now-includes-inventory-checks</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shopping-on-google-now-includes-inventory-checks</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google&amp;39's new product-shopping pages are designed to provide cues to offline stores from Web search.(Credit:Google)As the retail industry anxiously awaits another holiday season amid difficult conditions, Google is also hoping to attract shoppers with new search features. Over the next several days Google plans to introduce several new features to Google Shopping, the product search category of its site. As detailed by CNET earlier this summer, the idea is to blend online and offline shopping by providing information such as the location of local stores and whether a product is in stock at a retail store, said Sameer Samat, director of product management. Starting today, Google users will see two new links on search-results pages for product searches: stores nearby and an inventory update, which will advise shoppers if a product is in stock, in limited quantities, or out of stock. A click on an individual product page will also return a list of nearby stores that carry that product with an embedded Google Map for obtaining directions. E-commerce is old hat at this point, but even with the dramatic growth in online shopping over the last 15 years 93 percent of all shopping still takes place in retail outlets, Samat said. Still, lots of people--nearly half, according to Google's data--do research online comparing specs, prices, and features before heading out to stores. Google already knows that a lot of people use its search engine for that research, but it would also like to develop closer partnerships with retail stores that have agreed to upload their catalog listings and inventory data to Google's databases. At the moment, Google isn't going to be sharing the data of shoppers on its pages with retail partners, but it is likely to work out some sort of way to share aggregate data with those companies at some point in the future, allowing retailers to see how generic Google users found their products, which stores they prefer, and other online shopping habits. At some point, Google would like to extend this to smaller businesses, marrying its Google Shopping services with the local Google Places listings, but it's not quite ready to head down that road, Samat said. Over 70 large retailers are on board for the initial launch, including Macy's, Pottery Barn, and Best Buy, and Google has also struck deals with enterprise software companies JDA, Epicor, and Oracle to integrate the Google Shopping upload process into the inventory management systems of those retailers. Google has also added something it's calling &quot;aisles&quot; to product search-results pages, in hopes of taking an extremely broad search such as &quot;camera lenses&quot; and distilling it down into various ways to refine that category, such as shopping by brand, features, or aperture in this case. Retail stores are very good at drawing consumers in for one specific item but convincing them to buy other things in the store that they simply happen upon while trying to find the fitting room or checkout counter. That's not necessarily the case online: while some online stores like Amazon are good at serving recommendations, Google's product search pages suffer from a glut of information that hasn't always been organized into neat categories. Samat hopes that will change with the aisles, which will give consumers ways to shop through different categories of a product and expose them to other options they might not have known about when starting their search. Google also plans to highlight popular products on broad searches like camera lenses by measuring activity on certain product pages. These features will show up when conducting a search through the &quot;Shopping&quot; link on the left-hand side of the search results page, but Google will also surface a box containing some product-related search results on regular Web searches, as it does for images, videos, and news under certain conditions through its universal search strategy. And since a major part of the modern shopping experience now involves looking up details about a product on a smartphone while standing in the store, Google is making a few refinements to its Google Shopper Android app. It's adding the &quot;stores near me&quot; feature as well as the inventory checks to the mobile application, which should be made available in the Android Market later this week.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Laser-powered quadrocopter stays aloft for 12 hours]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laser-powered-quadrocopter-stays-aloft-for-12-hours</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laser-powered-quadrocopter-stays-aloft-for-12-hours</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laser-powered-quadrocopter-stays-aloft-for-12-hours</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Seen here is a quadrocopter, a small helicopter powered by beamed lasers. It was said to set a world record by staying aloft for more than 12 hours.Law enforcement officials may be able to monitor crowds with low-flying cameras for more than 12 hours, thanks to what could be record-breaking laser beam-powered technology.Two companies, Germany's Ascending Technologies and Seattle's LaserMotiv, say they set a new standard for flying time for what's called a quadrocopter, a small electric-powered helicopter.While the concept of a camera mounted on a quadrocopter has been around for some time, the companies said in a release today that until now, law enforcement had not been able to use them for more than 20 minutes.But Ascending Technologies and LaserMotiv say they fashioned a 1-kilogram quadrocopter called the &quot;AscTec Pelican,&quot; which was powered by a laser beam and special photovoltaic cells and was able to stay aloft for about 12 hours and 27 minutes. The principle behind the laser and photovoltaic cells is known as power beaming, and in this manifestation of the technology, the two companies set up a directed laser beam and coordinated it with a high-speed tracking system that is designed to power objects like a quadrocopter over distances of up to several kilometers. The AscTec Pelican was also outfitted with a battery pack that allowed the quadrocopter to fly autonomously for up to five minutes.This technology is similar to one being proposed by a start-up known as Escape Dynamics--albeit at a much different scale. Escape Dynamics hopes to be able to power a full-scale rocket launch with ground-based beamed microwaves within 7 to 10 years. The system being used by Ascending Technology and LaserMotiv is obviously much less ambitious, though it is already working today. Indeed, the companies said that LaserMotiv was the winner of a 2009 NASA-sponsored contest known as the Power Beaming Competition. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple confirms move to 90-second iTunes samples]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-confirms-move-to-90-second-itunes-samples</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-confirms-move-to-90-second-itunes-samples</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-confirms-move-to-90-second-itunes-samples</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is the note from Apple notifying music labels that it will boost the length of song samples. Longer song samples are finally on their way to iTunes. An Apple spokesman confirmed for CNET this evening a report by Symphonic Distribution, a digital music distributor, that iTunes would soon be extending the length of song samples from 30 seconds to 90 seconds for songs that are at least two-and-a-half minutes in length. Shorter songs would continue to offer the 30-second sample. Apple notified the top music labels and other business partners in the music industry about the change today. The samples are, of course, the snippets of music that Apple offers to iTunes users so they can determine whether they want a song or not. CNET was first to report on August 30 that Apple planned to increase the length of samples and would roll it out during the company's press event in San Francisco on September 1. The day after that report appeared, however, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) informed Apple that it had not negotiated for the proper licenses with music publishers and didn't have the right to offer longer samples. The longer samples were shelved temporarily. Since then, Apple has spoken with various groups, including the Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), one of the performing-rights organizations that collects royalties on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. BMI confirmed in September that it was in negotiations with Apple over the samples. Some of the discussions with rights holders may still be ongoing, according to music industry sources. But Apple apparently feels they are close enough to a final deal to inform their partners at the labels. Representatives from the NMPA and BMI were not immediately available. Song samples play an important role in the buying process, according to researchers at Robert Morris University. In a report released last year, professor Min Lu and assistant professor Yanbin Tu reported that consumers are more likely to buy songs if allowed to sample the music for about 60 seconds and if provided access to a &quot;high-quality&quot; version of the music. A chart created by researchers from Robert Morris University shows top ways consumers discover music.The first category is recommendations from friends.(Credit:Robert Morris University)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Opera Mini 5.1 beta for Nokia adds copy/paste, e-mail support]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-mini-5-1-beta-for-nokia-adds-copypaste-e-mail-support</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-mini-5-1-beta-for-nokia-adds-copypaste-e-mail-support</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-mini-5-1-beta-for-nokia-adds-copypaste-e-mail-support</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Opera)Opera Software, continuing to develop itsmobile browsers, today released a beta update to Opera Mini for Nokia's Symbian S60 smartphones.Opera Mini 5.1 beta (mobile download) makes some small but significant tweaks to the Opera Mini browser for the Symbian platform, including integrating support for the phone's native copy and paste, as well as the native e-mail client. That means you'll be able to use the phone's copy and paste functionality and also trigger the Nokia smartphone's e-mail composition window when you click a mail-to link in the Opera browser. Other additions include back-end tweaks to page loading and page scrolling in an effort to speed them up, work on fonts in an aim to improve their readability, and support for more Nokia handsets. The mobile browser is currently available in English, with support for more languages to follow as the beta develops.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Enterprise social network Yammer raises a whopping $25M to triple its team]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=enterprise-social-network-yammer-raises-a-whopping-25m-to-triple-its-team</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=enterprise-social-network-yammer-raises-a-whopping-25m-to-triple-its-team</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=enterprise-social-network-yammer-raises-a-whopping-25m-to-triple-its-team</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yammer, which develops and distributes an enterprise-focused social network similar to Facebook, announced today it has raised an additional $25 million in funding to help expand globally and triple its engineering team.Yammer recently revamped its business micro-blogging software tobehave more like a Facebook for enterprise usersand has seen a lot of success as a result. It&amp;'s now one of the flagship collaboration programs that help large businesses and companies that have employees strewn across the country communicate more effectively. The company has around 1.5 million corporate users, and around 80 percent of the largest companies in the world on the Fortune 500 list have deployed the service. More than 100,000 companies total use the service in 136 countries.The enterprise network provider has seen such explosive growth that it&amp;'s even making traditional collaboration software powerhouses sweat a bit.Salesforce originally provided its customers with a micro-blogging service called Chatter and charged everyone else $15 a month to use it. But the company did an about-face and is now offering the service for free to compete with Yammer. Kevin Spain, a partner with Emergence Capital and an investor in both Yammer and Salesforce, earlier called on Salesforce to unleash its micro-blogging service for free in order to successfully compete.&amp;''The fact that Salesforce has to copy Yammer even though it has 2,000 sales reps is like Goliath dropping his sword and armor and chasing after David with a sling-shot,&amp;'' said David Sacks, CEO of Yammer. &amp;''This funding will make sure they don&amp;'t catch up to us.&amp;''With Yammer, ita4a4s free to join, and the company makes money off subscription models for premium services and off IT servicing, Spain said. A number of Yammera4a4s features are held behind one of two pay walls a4&quot; a a4Asilvera4 model that costs businesses $3 per user per month, and a a4Agolda4 model that costs them $5 per user per month. But because the service is free to use initially, it&amp;'s able to spread virally as employees begin using it on their own within companies. That means Yammer has virtually no marketing budget a4&quot; it grows organically, much like Facebook and other social networks have.The San Francisco, Calif.-based company has raised $40 million to date. The most recent round was led by U.S. Venture Partners. Yammer&amp;'s existing investors, Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund, also participated. U.S. Venture Partners Principal Mamood Hamid will join Yammer&amp;'s board of directors as part of the deal.Yammer launched in 2008 and very quickly hit the 1 million user mark in July. The company is led by David Sacks, PayPala4a4s former chief operating officer. David Stewart, former senior director of product at social networking game company Playdom, and Mark Woolway, a former managing director at Clarium Capital, are also joining Yammer as executives as of today.Next Story: Sony claims it has shipped 4.1M PlayStation Move units, but doesn&amp;'t give sell-through number Previous Story: No more syncing: Didiom streams music to your iPhone from anywherePrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: collaboration, enterprise social network, social networkCompanies: salesforce, Yammer          Tags: collaboration, enterprise social network, social networkCompanies: salesforce, YammerMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook&'s aggressive social strategy]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-defends-facebookrsquos-aggressive-social-strategy</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-defends-facebookrsquos-aggressive-social-strategy</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-defends-facebookrsquos-aggressive-social-strategy</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Facebook has taken a lot of flack for an aggressive, &amp;''opt-out&amp;'' strategy around some of its products &amp;8212' specifically, the fact that your Facebook friends can tag you in Photos without your permission, and that they can now add you to Groups without your permission. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described some of the thinking behind that approach on-stage today at the Web 2.0 Summit.The social networking company credits this design with fueling the rapid growth of Photos (which is now the most popular photo-sharing application on the Web) and Groups (which Zuckerberg called one of Facebook&amp;'s fastest-growing products ever). But this approach can lead to some awkward situations, like when a friend tags you in an embarrassing photo or ropes you into an inappropriate group.Zuckerberg pointed out that you can just un-tag the photo or leave the group. Interviewer John Battelle described that approach as one that &amp;''doesn&amp;'t ask for permission, it asks for forgiveness.&amp;''&amp;''The friend relationship is manual,&amp;'' Zuckerberg replied. In other words, Facebook asks for permission before you approve someone as your friend, and that permission gives them &amp;''the right to do certain things.&amp;'' The implicit solution: If you don&amp;'t like what a friend is doing, then you should un-friend them.That was basically my response to the Groups complaints, but it will be harder for Facebook users who approve any and every friend request that comes in. So this seems like another way in which the company is designing its services so that Facebook connections reflect real-world connections, rather than a willy-nilly approach to random friend acceptance.You can see that in yesterday&amp;'s launch of a new version of Facebook Messages. One of the reporters at the press conference noted that by prioritizing any message sent by a Facebook friend, the company seemed to be discouraging people from making new friends on Facebook. Director of engineering Andrew Bosworth responded: Yep, pretty much.&amp;''I don&amp;'t think the goal of Facebook was ever to expand the social graph,&amp;'' Bosworth said.[photo by Dean Takahashi]Next Story: Mark Zuckerberg credits games for Facebook&amp;'s rapid growth Previous Story: Google investor John Doerr: Zynga is our best company everPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Facebook Groups, Facebook Messages, Facebook Photos, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: FacebookPeople: Andrew Bosworth, Mark Zuckerberg          Tags: Facebook Groups, Facebook Messages, Facebook Photos, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: FacebookPeople: Andrew Bosworth, Mark ZuckerbergAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Begun, The Sticker Wars&nbsp'Have]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=begun-the-sticker-warsnbsphave</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=begun-the-sticker-warsnbsphave</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=begun-the-sticker-warsnbsphave</guid>
<description><![CDATA[We&amp;'re in the midst of a very important racea4sthat could help dictate the future of location-based services. But instead of the usual Silicon Valley weapons of engineering talent and network effects, this one is a bit less technical. It&amp;'s all about stickers.Head to the Macy&amp;'s in downtown San Francisco right now and you&amp;'ll see a prominent sticker at the entrance prompting you to check-in using Facebook to get a special deal. That&amp;'s pretty impressive given that Facebook only launched its its deals service a week ago. And it&amp;'s only a taste of what&amp;'s to come a4&quot;a4sexpect to see many other large retailers start to slap on Facebook&amp;'s stickers as the social network flexes its biz dev muscles.These windows stickers aren&amp;'t anything new. Yelp is probably the best known web company to use the tactic, and has long distributed stickers to businesses with the slogan &amp;''People Love Us On Yelp!&amp;''. Over the summer, Foursquare began distributing its own stickers that prompt users to check-in. And Facebook has actually been distributing stickers of its own to help businesses promote their Facebook Pages since April.  But these deal and location stickers could be different.Right now, many people (probably most people) have no idea what a check-in is. When Gap launched its free jeans deal, people were actually visiting the company&amp;'s Facebook Page to write &amp;''checking in&amp;'', rather than using the Places function on Facebook&amp;'s mobile application. But over the next few months that&amp;'s going to change, because more businesses are going to offer deals and users will have a financial incentive to figure out how these things work. And once they do, they&amp;'ll start looking for the sticker of the service they&amp;'re familiar with.In other words, these stickers are really a physical proxy for each service&amp;'s mindshare.  Some businesses will probably slap on a bunch of window stickers inviting their users to check-in on Facebook, Foursquare, SCVNGR, and more. Others a4&quot;a4sand I suspect, the majority of businesses a4&quot;a4swill pick one service and stick with it to avoid customer confusion (and so that they don&amp;'t have to do deal with managing deals on multiple services).  And right now, my money is on Facebook winning out for that window space.  Customers may not initially understand how a check-in works, but they&amp;'re probably on Facebook already, whereas Foursquare is probably something they&amp;'ve just heard a lot about on the news. Foursquare had several month&amp;'s head start and may be able to combat this by distributing stickers and other promotions on an even larger scale, but I think it&amp;'s too late for that a4&quot;a4sthey&amp;'ll need to focus more on adding value on top of check-ins (and it sounds like the company knows this).Adding a bit more fuel to Facebook&amp;'s fire: we just got a tip that a local Chipotle just received a big box of Facebook Deals stickers. Free burritos, anyoneCrunchBase InformationFacebookFoursquareInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[DealQuad Takes Groupon&'s Model To&nbsp'School]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dealquad-takes-grouponrsquos-model-tonbspschool</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dealquad-takes-grouponrsquos-model-tonbspschool</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dealquad-takes-grouponrsquos-model-tonbspschool</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yes, it&amp;'s time for another local deals site. But this one is a bit different from the countless Groupon competitors, because it&amp;'s targeting a very specific market: college students.  It&amp;'s called DealQuad, and it&amp;'s working directly with college newspapers to match students with good deals (and help the newspapers stay afloat in the process). Since launching last month, the company has landed deals with school papers at Harvard, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington. It&amp;'s also recently closed an angel round with participation from Paige Craig, Randy Kaplan, and celebrity interactive agency Charlie.So how does targeting this student market puta4sDealQuad in any better position than the countless other Groupon competitors CEO Jeffrey Appelbaum says that there are a few advantages.  First, the student newspapers DealQuad works with already have distribution across the student body both online and in their print editions, which helps clear the first hurdle of getting eyeballs on each deal. They also tend to have relationships with the local businesses around schools, which have staff who can help set up deals (which means that DealQuad doesn&amp;'t have to establish a huge salesforce the way Groupon has).The deals themselves are pretty familiar. Students are directed to a branded DealQuad portal from their newspaper&amp;'s website or ads in the print edition. They&amp;'re asked for their email when they first get to this site, which lets DealQuad send them information about new deals on a regular basis (at this point it&amp;'s twice a week, but the company plans to scale this up to the industry-standard daily email).  As with Groupon, in order for a deal to take effect it has to reach a &amp;8216'tipping point&amp;', which gives students an incentive to get their friends to sign up. A chunk of the revenue generated by each deal (35-50%) goes back to DealQuad and the paper. Appelbaum wouldn&amp;'t say how this is split between DealQuad and the newspaper but says that it&amp;'s in the paper&amp;'s favor.Again, pretty standard. There is one interesting twist though: deals have a second, higher tipping point that&amp;'s related to fundraising. Whenever you sign up for a deal, you can associate yourself with a group (this could be a fraternity, club, or charity organization). Then, once this second tipping point is activated, there&amp;'s a bit of a competition: the group with the most participants in the deal actually gets a small cut of the revenue generated by that deal.DealQuad is not the first startup that&amp;'s looking to apply the Groupon model to college students a4&quot;a4swe recently wrote about a site called CampusDibs that also does this. The difference, at least so far, appears to lie in the sort of deals the companies are offering. DealQuad&amp;'s deals are primarily focused around local businesses, while CampusDibsa4sdeals appear to focus more on widely available products that appeal to the youth demographic.In another unique twist, the DealQuad team is also trying to educate the students working for their newspaper partners. The company holds regular interactive webinars to explain the group buying process and why the model works, with input from Chief Strategy Officer Randy Hlavac, who has been a marketing professor as Northwesterna4a4s Medill School of Journalism for 18 years.Of course, college students aren&amp;'t really known for having a ton of disposable income. But Appelbaum says this plays in the company&amp;'s favora4sa4&quot;a4sstudents are always looking to save a buck, and since DealQuad is offering local deals at places they&amp;'re nearby and possibly shopping at anyway, this could be a good way to help them save money.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[A Qwiki Snapshot Of&nbsp'AOL]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-qwiki-snapshot-ofnbspaol</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-qwiki-snapshot-ofnbspaol</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-qwiki-snapshot-ofnbspaol</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is too funny not to post.  The screen grab above comes from Qwiki, the visual search engine which came away with the top prize at our last TechCrunch Disrupt.  Qwiki is still in private alpha , but it essentially assembles a visual narrative for millions of topics by pulling together images and text, which is read out loud by a friendly, female robo-voice.When you search for &amp;''AOL&amp;'' in Qwiki, it prominently features the slide above showing AOL&amp;'s precipitous decline in subscribers from 2001 to 2009.  It is amazing how a picture can say it all, even if it is outdated.   That slide pretty much sums up the perception of many people out there when you mention AOL.  And algorithms tooa4&quot;Qwiki relies completely on its algorithms to select images.  Of course, AOL is trying to shake that past and move boldly into the future.  Hell, it bought us, didn&amp;'t it  And, I must say, we are very happy with our new corporate overlords.  In the past 30 days alone, referring traffic from AOL is up 7,948,666.67% (that is the actual number).  May we have anotherTruth be told, the Qwiki entry on AOL could use some better images.  Here is a better one to start with:CrunchBase InformationAOLQwikiInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Local Hero: Seth Priebatsch, Scvngr]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=local-hero-seth-priebatsch-scvngr</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=local-hero-seth-priebatsch-scvngr</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=local-hero-seth-priebatsch-scvngr</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Company: ScvngrLocation: BostonFounded: June 2008Founder: Seth PriebatschFunding: $4.8 millionEmployees: 50Scvngr founder Seth Priebatsch &amp;8212' who prefers the title &amp;''chief ninja&amp;'' to &amp;''CEO&amp;'' &amp;8212' took the idea of checking in to a location to the next level and turned it into a game. We caught up with Priebatsch to talk more about Scvngr&amp;'s popularity: It recently reached more than 500,000 users and is still growing fast.Why did you start the companyMy vision was to build a game layer on top of the world and give people an experience outside of their usual lives. People are motivated by virtual games played on a computer or the Xbox. We want to take that motivation and transition it to the real world. We now have a functioning game in the physical world that fits into everyonea4a4s daily lives and anyone can play. We want people to take a few seconds every day to check in and play.Whata4a4s the coolest place you checked into recentlyI recently made a trip to the top of Mount Washington. While I was  at the research station, I decided to check in and complete one of the default tasks on Scvngr, snapping a picture. I also had the opportunity to complete another task, the social check-in, with four of my friends who happened to be with me on the top of the mountain. That was pretty cool.When did you realize it was working A couple months ago, I logged onto Facebook and saw a post from someone on my wall. I didna4a4t really know the guy, but there was a comment on my recent check-in update. The person said a4AOh hey, you use Scvngr, too. I love it!a4 He didna4a4t know I was the founder of Scvngr. It was eye-opening to have an almost complete stranger tell me that he loved the game.What&amp;'s next for the location-based industry and servicesThe next phase of location-based anything is about stories and experiences, rather than just a check-in. Ita4a4s about showing what happens during a period of time. For example, doing a task at a location like taking a picture tells a specific story that can then be shared with others.Where are you checking in nextIa4a4ll be checking in to Boston Paintball. We issued a proclamation that Scvngr owns the startup world in Boston and challenged all startups to the ultimate paintball match. So far, we have had inbound-marketing company Hubspot answer the call. Wea4a4ll let you know who wins!VentureBeat&amp;'s Local Heroes series is sponsored by Adobe and is also available as an Adobe Acrobat X Pro portfolio. Check out the portfolio to read the entire series and get additional content.Next Story: Local Hero: Sam Altman, Loopt Previous Story: Appitalism launches a social community for discovering apps (exclusive)PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: gamification, Local Heroes, location based services, social gamesCompanies: ScvngrPeople: Seth Priebatsch          Tags: gamification, Local Heroes, location based services, social gamesCompanies: ScvngrPeople: Seth PriebatschCody Barbierri is a social and digital media consultant. He works for Piehead and blogs about social media at Social Tab. (None of his posts are about clients or their competitors.) Reach him at Cody@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Cody on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Social Shopping App CheckPoints Downloaded 100K Times Since&nbsp'Disrupt]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-shopping-app-checkpoints-downloaded-100k-times-sincenbspdisrupt</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-shopping-app-checkpoints-downloaded-100k-times-sincenbspdisrupt</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=social-shopping-app-checkpoints-downloaded-100k-times-sincenbspdisrupt</guid>
<description><![CDATA[CheckPoints, a mobile shopping app that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt over a month ago, has surpassed 100,000 downloads of its iPhone app. The milestone is impressive considering that the app has only been available for one month. CheckPoints takes a more product centric approach to its shopping app. When you walk into a store, the app will show you featured products that you can scan with the built-in barcode reader. After scanning, you&amp;'ll receive an interactive game that a marketer has made for that brand, allowing marketers to actually directly connect with consumers at the point of sale. Consumers are incentivized to scan products because it earns them a4Acheckpointsa4 which can be redeemed for discounts and products once you have enough.  For example, Frito-Lay is using CheckPoints to advertise a promo for their new Tostitos Artisan Recipes. When consumers scan a Frito-Lay product, they will earn points and receive holiday recipe ideas and exclusive music content from Frito-Lay. At launch, Checkpoints has deals with a number of brands including Belkin, Tyson Energizer, and Unilever, Kmart and Belkin. And when it comes to actual usage, CheckPoints is reporting thousands of user scans per day in stores all across the U.S.CheckPoints faces competition from Shopkick and Barcode Hero. CrunchBase InformationCheckPointsInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[RIM can&'t stop chat app Kik, which just reached 3M users]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-canrsquot-stop-chat-app-kik-which-just-reached-3m-users</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-canrsquot-stop-chat-app-kik-which-just-reached-3m-users</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rozemiluc</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-canrsquot-stop-chat-app-kik-which-just-reached-3m-users</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Wea4a4ve been covering the rapid growth of free real-time chat application Kik, but the company seemed to hit a roadblock in the last month or so when it was pulled off BlackBerry phones and sued by BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion for alleged patent infringement.Today, however, Kik chief executive Ted Livingston (a former RIM employee) told us that the application is still finding an audience on iPhones, iPods, and Android devices &amp;8212' it now has 3 million registered users. Thata4a4s really impressive for a service that launched less than three months ago. (I was just marveling at photo-sharing app Instagram, which launched at around the same time and reached 1 million users last month.)VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall is a huge fan of the app. He praised the way it helps you find address book contacts who have also downloaded Kik, and that Kik gives text conversations on your phone a much more real-time feel by showing when messages are delivered and read, or even when your contact is typing out a response.In discussing the growth, Livingston got theoretical, noting that a4Astrong tiea4 social relationships (like your connections on Kik) are more important than a4Aweak tiesa4 (like most of your a4Afriendsa4 on a site like Facebook) and that text messaging dominates communication between strong ties. As evidence, he pointed to a presentation from Googlea4a4s Paul Adams (now at Facebook).Livingston wrote:Does this mean that there is a huge, yet to be seen social network for your strong ties that will be built on &amp;''text messaging 2.0&amp;8243' A network that will be fundamentally different than Facebook, designed for intimacy and immediacy rather than exhibitionism and voyeurism I certainly think so.Previous Story: Samsung to let its gadget users access Time Warner and Comcast programmingPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: mobile chatCompanies: KikPeople: Ted Livingston          Tags: mobile chatCompanies: KikPeople: Ted LivingstonAnthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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