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Microsoft and Nokia to develop “mobile productivity solutions”

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microsoft-nokia-logosIn a press conference earlier today, Microsoft and Nokia announced a partnership which would see them design, develop and market mobile productivity solutions.

Side-stepping the corporate jargon as best we can, it means that Microsoft’s Office Mobile plus a range of its business comms, collaboration and device management software will be available on Nokia devices running the Symbian operating system.

Obviously, it’s been possible to work with Office documents and to interface with other Microsoft products on Nokia devices for years, but this is an official alliance that, in rhetoric at least, will offer a “seamless and integrated productivity experience”.

[Read more…]

Originally posted on August 12, 2009 @ 12:22 pm

Are youth abandoning social networks?

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texting-teenagerA report by the British media regulator Ofcom suggests that a proportion of 15-24 year olds who used to hang out on social networks like Facebook and MySpace have abandoned them because of the influx of older people, particularly the 25-34 age group.

Basic figures showed that just half of 15-24 year olds used social networking sites in the first quarter of this year, compared to 55% in the same period of 2008, while 25-34 age group usage has increased from 40% to 46%. [Read more…]

Originally posted on August 7, 2009 @ 7:12 am

Twitter noise to increase with prediction of 100m visitors by year end

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Statistics gathered from a couple of online tracking services (Compete and comScore) suggests that the number of global Twitter users reached 44.5m at the end of June, with a near-equal split between US and non-US visitors.

twitter.jpgThe use of Twitter in the Iran elections is sure to have contributed to the massive rise in traffic in the first quarter of the year. Mark Evans predicts that 100 million Twitter visitors per month could be reached come November, based on 20%-per-month growth. [Read more…]

Originally posted on August 4, 2009 @ 11:22 am

Cyber attack fails to thwart Top 100 DJs online poll

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top-100-djsVoting in this year’s “Top 100 DJs Poll” kicked off this morning despite a Friday night attack which took down DJMag.com’s website for the whole weekend.

Panic over, music lovers now have seven weeks to vote for their five favorite DJs, with the poll closing on 23 September. Over 350,000 voters worldwide cast their votes last year.

Every voter is entitled to a free download from TrackItDown.net, and there’s plenty to choose from in an 800,000-strong catalog from over 18,000 labels.

As an added altruistic incentive, each year the poll results are announced at an event which raises money for a charity.

You can cast your vote at top100djs.net or djmag.com/top100djs

Originally posted on August 3, 2009 @ 7:22 am

iGoogle gets social gadgets: trying to be Facebook?

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Google has announced a fairly major upgrade to its iGoogle personal homepage with the introduction of social gadgets.

As the name suggests, it’s a way for users to add a range of interactive elements to their personalized page, including tools that make collaboration with other users easier.

igoogle-social-gadgets

A growing list of social gadgets includes games, prominent blogs and shared to-do lists.

All very nice, but I get the sense that Google is pointing at Facebook and saying “if we can’t own you, we’ll simulate you” [Read more…]

Originally posted on August 13, 2009 @ 3:52 am