From Mashable: The Semantic Web The Semantic Web -- What It Is and Why It Matters [VIDEO]

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever struggled to make sense of terms like “semantic web,” we’ve got a fascinating, entertaining and informative video for you.

The Internet currently holds about as much information as 1,700 Libraries of Congress. Some of the leading minds on the web are exploring new ways to sort this data and how to understand not just what data is about, but also how data is linked.

For example, a picture on Flickr is more than just a number of pixels and a file size. It was uploaded by a person and might contain images of other people. It might have been taken in a specific place or be about a specific moment in time. Those bits of information link that photograph to other entities: people, places, things and events. When we know how data is linked and we use that information to determine relevancy across media and sources, we’re using the semantic web.

Simply put, the semantic web gives us more than just raw data; it shows us the context and relationships behind and between those data.

Student Kate Ray interviewed a flock of researchers, entrepreneurs and other innovators for her 14-minute documentary, Web 3.0. Ray is a journalism/psych major at NYU who has done extensive research on the semantic web. Her subjects include World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee, Hunch.com CEO and inventor Chris Dixon, and a host of other semantic web experts.

Ray’s film is a brief but high-level discussion of semantic technologies, the tech that’s going to affect how we use the Internet and all its information for years to come. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about the semantic web, what it is and why it matters to all kinds of Internet users, we highly recommend checking out this documentary above.

Amuro Namie | "Wild" -- Japanese Singing Sensation Reveals her Wild Heart

Asian music is taking the world by storm and Manila, for one, couldn’t be any more welcoming. What many of us once thought were unusual mixes and beats, not to mention incomprehensible lyrics, are now fast becoming the staple background music of our daily routines. No doubt, the Sandaras and Super Juniors along with all the J-pop and K-pop superstars of this side of the globe are invading the airwaves and we can’t help but sing along.

Recently, more and more heads are turning into the north eastern part of the map with eyes staring amazedly at the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan where a distinct energy is spurring and a vibe-licious sound is echoing wildly. An undisputedly great talent is surfacing within the consciousness of Pinoy music lovers and it goes by the name Amuro Namie.

Amuro is a celebrated icon in the Japanese entertainment biz. In the country at present, she is becoming more and more known as the Japanese singing sensation who’s gone “wild”; wild at the charts and wild at heart.

Through the renowned Japanese record label Avex Entertainment Inc., Amuro’s hit single “Wild” was released in the country last year. The track features the music of michico and T. Kura of Giant Swing Productions. A catchy danceable song that has a futuristic groove into it, Wild superbly showcases a good harmony between Amuro’s matchless vocals and upbeat music.

Since her musical debut, Amuro has remained one of the longest surviving popular female acts in Japan. Not only is she an accomplished singer, Namie Amuro has perfected the art of stage performance. In her live performances and videos, it’s unmistakable that her years of training in dance always pop out. As what a critic once write about her, “she captures the hearts of her audience by the graceful animation of her stage personality. Amuro Namie has been the most notable Japanese singer to emerge from the Japanese music culture”.

From Mashable / Advertising Age: Facebook adding Foursquare-like features soon

17 minutes ago Jolie O'Dell 10

Facebook Adding Location Features This Month [REPORT]

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Information has leaked that Facebook is set to roll out location-based features for users and brands as soon as this month. According to Advertising Age, users could see location options any day now.

These features will include the ability to check in at various locations, including retail spots and restaurants. We’re unclear as to whether users will be able to add or customize their own locations, but we are fairly positive that this move will put Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla and other location-based services in an uncomfortable position.

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Meaning for Users

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The ability to check in to different locations is, as we’ve reported previously, a game-changing feature for Facebook. Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and other startups that specialize in location-based features and services — and that often take checks from corporations for branded integrations — might have trouble competing with a Goliath like Facebook if the push toward checkins continues. Facebook has the userbase and mainstream adoption to bring location-sharing tools to a huge audience, excluding these newer competitors from the market. And if the company is rolling out features now, that likely means an acquisition is not likely, either.

If this feature does indeed roll out soon to end users, it also brings with it another round of privacy concerns. It’s clear that not all users understand the risks of public sharing or how to protect their likes, groups and updates. When they risk exposing their locations to the general populace, another layer of security precautions (along with the usual media FUD) is sure to follow.

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Meaning for Brands

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McDonald’s will be the first brand to test the new features. The McDonald’s integration will involve users checking in at McDonald’s restaurants and showing featured food items in their posts. Digital advertising and marketing shops around the country are preparing to construct campaigns around this new functionality.

It’s interesting to note that this move further puts Facebook into competition with Google for local advertising dollars. Being able to target users geographically as well as demographically gives hyperlocal advertisers an edge and might cut into Google’s most profitable revenue stream.

Would you use Facebook rather than Foursquare to check in to restaurants, night spots or other locations? Do you think Facebook can beat Foursquare and other services to making location checkins mainstream?

We welcome your comments and will continue to follow this story closely as we wait for an official response from Facebook.

San Miguel Pale Pilsen Plagiarises Pitch Presentation?

A few months ago, an agency (which prefers to remain anonymous for now) was invited to pitch for the San Miguel Pale Pilen website. They presented a concept that was well received by the client. Unfortunately, the client never came back to them for any follow ups.

Voila, now SMB-PP has a new website which appears to have the same concept as what the agency presented. Did they get paid for it? No. Did they even tell the agency? No.

Sad reality of advertising. We sell ideas, pitch for accounts, and big companies steal it for nothing. Nothing.

See for yourself and tell me if it's not a rip-off of the pitch concept. I'm not making any solid accusations here (don't get me wrong). Plagiarism is hard to prove in court. But credibility & integrity is also not easy to earn.

Here's their pitch concept:

Here's the actual website, recently launched:
Judge for yourselves.

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UPDATE (06 May 2010): San Miguel has taken notice of this blogpost and has already contacted the agency involved. They're currently investigating into the matter on what had actually transpired. Apparently, the final web design was executed by their internal creative team, and whether or not it was copied or inspired by the pitch materials is still being looked into. San Miguel as a corporation has expressed their respect for creative ownership and has denied that this is a reflection of how they do business with their agencies and vendors. I'll keep you posted on further updates.

From Mashable: WordPress Goes Real-Time With PubSubHubbub

by Barb Dybwad | originally from Mashable

WordPress.com‘ 10.5 million blogs are about to get a whole lot more real-time, thanks to a new behind-the-scenes development.

The WordPress team has announced in a blog post that the company has turned on support for PubSubHubbub (try saying that fast five times), a move that will get blog content to RSS services (such as Google Reader and Bloglines) much more quickly.

Essentially it’s a way for hosted WordPress blogs to “push” content out as it’s published to the services, rather than waiting for the services to check in for new posts. It’s live now for WordPress.com blogs, while self-hosted blogs can go real-time with this plugin.

PubHubSubbub, or PuSH, is demoed nicely in the “cheesy” video (that’s WordPress’ choice of word, not ours) below. However those of you who want to find out more about the new protocol can do so over at the PuSH project site.

From Mashable: Has Digg Found the Winning Formula for Ads?

by Jennifer Van Grove | from Mashable

Digg took a big risk when they added in-line advertisements that users could digg or bury. Four months later, however, early signs indicate that DiggAds are a win for all parties involved: users, advertisers, and especially Digg.

This latest bit of information was shared in a blog post earlier today that details how the DiggAds system actually works and the results thus far.

Here are the key details from Digg’s comments:

- DiggAds is powered by a complex auction-based system that attempts to serve users with the highest quality ads — Digg assigns their own quality score to ads — while factoring in the advertiser’s bidding price. It’s like Google Adsense but with quality scoring. The idea is to reward high quality ads with lower CPCs; the more diggs an ad gets the less the advertiser pays.

- Feedback from users is mostly positive, but one of the biggest user requests is to be able to comment on ads. Users are also confused by buried ads that reappear, but Digg suggests that in this case it’s just advertisers experimenting with ad format and resubmitting.

- DiggAds will evolve to include comments and address the “long-live” ad issue where ads get misleadingly high digg counts.

- The system is working with Digg saying that, “From a revenue perspective, things have been great”.

What’s especially interesting is that DiggAds displays advertisements to site users in the same format as other Digg content — so ads are a part of the Digg stream like other stories — but for the most part users appear to be embracing the model instead of rejecting it (and Digg’s community has historically not been shy over voicing displeasure with things they don’t like).

As Twitter prepares to unveil its own alternative ad platform, we have to wonder if they’ll emulate some of Digg’s tactics and whether or not Twitter’s very vocal user base will be as accepting as Digg’s has been.

Mashable's Face-off Series

Mashable has been running polls for a couple of months now, pitting two (or three) apps/companies/technologies against each other and getting their readers to vote.

Here are some of the past weeks' results:

Week 1:
- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
- WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Week 10:
- AT&T vs. Verizon
- WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes)

Week 11:
- Google vs. Bing
- WINNER: Google, 2180 votes (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes)

Week 12:
- iPod Touch/iPhone vs. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP
- WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone, 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, Nintendo DS: 482 votes, Tie: 108 votes)

Week 13:
- Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon
- WINNER: Digg, 14,762 votes (Reddit: 11,466 votes, StumbleUpon: 2507 votes, Tie: 1032 votes)

Week 14:
- Old versus new Twitter retweets
- WINNER: Old style retweets, 1625 votes (New style retweets: 699 votes, Tie: 227 votes)

Week 15:
- Gmail vs. Outlook
- WINNER: Gmail, 3684 votes (Outlook: 980 votes, Tie: 590 votes)

Week 16:
- Boxee vs. Hulu
- WINNER: Hulu, 626 votes (Boxee: 591 votes, Tie: 106 votes)

Week 17:
- Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS
- WINNER: Nexus One, 6743 votes (iPhone 3GS: 2818 votes, Tie: 592 votes)

Week 18:
- Foursquare vs. Yelp vs. Gowalla
- WINNER: Foursquare, 1182 votes, (Yelp: 661 votes, Gowalla: 509 votes, Tie: 143 votes)

Week 19:
- AIM vs. GTalk vs. FbChat
- WINNER: GTalk, 2189 votes, (AIM: 1257 votes, FbChat: 511 votes, Tie: 203 votes)

Week 20:
- Music Ownership vs. Music Subscription
- WINNER: Ownership, 533 votes (Subscription: 299 votes, Tie: 237)

Week 21:
- Match.com vs. PlentyofFish
- WINNER: Plenty of Fish, 430 votes (Match.com: 334 votes, Tie: 187 votes)

Week 21:
- Google Buzz vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter

- WINNER: Facebook, 3353 votes (Twitter: 1828 votes, Google Buzz: 1298 votes, Tie: 651 votes)

This week's poll: Adobe Flash vs. HTML 5

Which will you vote for?