Tech Week in Review 7/17/09

by rahsheen

July 17, 2009

FireFox Add-on Developers Finally Get Some Shine

The primary motivation for many Firefox users to stick with Firefox is the add-ons. Ubiquity, Feedly, and Firebug just to name a few. Seems that Mozilla realizes how important those developers are. Especially since they’ve been pretty much working for free. So, they have instituted a method for add-on developers to get paid for their work.

According to a post on the Mozilla blog, the company will be working with PayPal to provide the developers with a secure way to facilitate international payments. Developers will be able to include a “Contribute” button on their add-on’s page that displays a suggested amount. Users will be able to contribute either that amount or one of their own choosing. The developers will also have the option to create different PayPal IDs for each of their Firefox add-ons.

MySpace Failing on All Fronts

Despite fighting a losing battle to be the most popular social network out there, MySpace has consistently stayed on top in one category: Entertainment. The primary comeback for anyone talking smack about MySpace is to mention MySpace Music. Well, according to this article on Mashable, MySpace is no longer the King of entertainment. They even have graphs to prove it.

Apple Whines About Microsofts Ad Campaign

In a completely lame move, Apple asked Microsoft to stop “Laptop Hunter” ads, which basically says Apple computers cost too much. I won’t comment on whether this is true or not, but no one can deny that this is definitely Bitchassness by Apple. After all those “Get a Mac” ads, Apple wants to complain?

For years, Microsoft either never responded or put together ads that didn’t resonate with the public (do you remember those Seinfeld-Gates ads from last year? Yeah, I’ve tried to block those out too). However, its most recent ad campaign, “Laptop Hunters,” has been gaining traction.

In fact, it’s been so effective that apparently Apple’s legal department called Microsoft and asked them to stop running the ads.

TechCrunch Ethics and Personal Security

Some guy hacked the documents of some Twitter employees and they somehow ended up in the hands of TechCrunch, who posted them immediately. This brings up valid security concerns, none of which are actually related to the services we use, but the basic security we apply in our use. Webomatica has good write-up of some security precautions you can take, but I’m not sure about being distrustful of the “cloud” as I rather like my stuff there. Mashable also offers some clues as to how this security breach happened.

The ethics of TechCrunch I’ll pass on for now, but one worthy message: we should be more careful with our logins and passwords, what we share online, and remain distrustful of the “cloud.” Even in today’s world of social sharing everything and mobile computing, I still follow the old adage: if you want to keep stuff private, don’t put it on the web, period. Since there is no such thing as a secure system, the best place for data you want to keep secure – is outside said system.

BingTweets Brings Tweets Closer to Bing

In an interesting move, Microsoft worked with Twitter to develop a web service that combines your search results with results from Twitter. Not really anything to be excited about except that they are actually paying attention to Twitter.

Bingtweets looks like an interesting project, but while its tagline is “Fusing Twitter Trends with Bing Insights,” the reality is that it displays a Twitter feed next to Bing’s search results and there is no real fusion between the two.

Justin.tv Targets User Engagement With Redesign and Meebo Chat

Apparently, Justin.tv recognizes the need for realtime interaction and has taken this into consideration in their recent redesign.

Justin.tv is streamlining its website in a full redesign that aims to get users broadcasting almost immediately. This coincides with the new beta channel design that’s been in testing for a while. And finally, Justin.tv added a kicker: they’ve integrated the Meebo chat bar across their entire website to facilitate instant messaging between users.

Posterous Integrates with Google Maps

Posterous has added geotagging and Google Maps so that people can see where you posted something in addition to what you posted. This simple feature addition puts it directly in competition with other photo sites like Pikchur and OurDoings according to some users.

Today they’re getting even more useful. As you may have noticed, locations and maps are now a part of your Posterous. That’s because Posterous has integrated with Google Maps to allow for easy embedding of maps, and automatic geo-tagging to displaying location, complete with mini maps, for photos.

Adobe AIR Getting On Your Last Nerve?

I have been wondering what was up with this for quite some time and, finally, RWW has echoed my own thoughts. Why do we have all these resource intensive Adobe AIR apps when a web page would work just as well? The recent web releases of the Seesmic Desktop and Sobees Twitter clients serve to illustrate the point.

…recently, we’ve begun to question AIR’s longevity. Now don’t get us wrong – many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there’s no reason why these apps couldn’t just run in a browser instead…and that might even be a better place for them.