IS Magazine Blog

Apple’s MacBook Air Debuts

MacBook Air

Apple’s MacBook Air Debuts

The new Apple MacBook Air has recently been demonstrated by Steve Jobs to the public and is receiving great reviews. With two different models, a 11.6” and a 13.3”, the MacBook Air has all the convenience of the iPad but with a keyboard. Pricing starts at $999 for the smaller model and $1,299 for the 13.3” model. One advantage of the 13.3” model is a couple more hours of battery life in addition to the larger screen resolution.

HubPages Reaches One Million Hubs and Counting

hubpages-picture

HubPages Reaches One Million Hubs and Counting

The popular blogging website HubPages, were writers create individual pages on content on a specific topic, has reached a milestone of one million Hubs. Unlike other similar sites that have closed or restricted the kind of content that can be published, HubPages allows practically any topic to be used as a Hub. Other new features of the site include forums and Q&A. A popular aspect of the site for writers, is the ability to monetize their pages with Google AdSense, eBay auctions, Amazon Products and many other forms. The revenue earned (60% of the total) is not kept within HugPages but recorded directly with the vendor.

FaceMash.com For Sale on Flippa

mark-zuckerberg

FaceMash.com For Sale on Flippa

If you have seen the Facebook movie ‘The Social Network’ then you know that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s first version of a social site was FaceMash.com. The site built overnight when his girlfriend left him, featured two side by side photos of Harvard undergrads that you could vote on. You were voting which one was better looking. It took off and crashed the Harvard network within one night of release.

AOL Purchases TechCrunch

AOL TechCrunch

AOL Purchases TechCrunch

AOL is trying to regain some of its influence online with the purchase of a number of assets this week including Techcrunch.com. TechCrunch is one of the more popular blogs online covering technology news and company announcements. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, was purchased for $40 million and will continue to operate as a separate entity. The announcement was made at TechCrunch’s conference TechCrunch Disrupt.

Twitter Retires the Early Bird Advertisement Product

twitter-earlybird

Twitter Retires the Early Bird Advertisement Product

Today at the IAB Mixx conference, Twitter COO Dick Costolo announced that the Twitter Early Bird program would be retired. The advertising program allowed advertisers to make product announcements directly to Twitter users through one centralized account, @EarlyBird. Virgin American and Disney were companies that took advantage of the program but most offers were only for the American market which Twitter felt was alienating to international users.

Blockbuster Prepares for Bankruptcy

Blockbuster

Blockbuster Prepares for Bankruptcy

According to sources close to the company, Blockbuster is preparing to file for bankruptcy with plans to close hundreds of more stores as they battle against cheap online options (Netflix) and kiosks (Redbox). The company hopes to convert debt to equity and wipe out debt by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company currently has $900 million in debt and hopes to rid itself of most of the debt.

Adobe Stock Falls Despite Record Revenue

Adobe

Adobe Stock Falls Despite Record Revenue

Adobe, the maker of popular computer software for web development and graphics design, announced their third quarter results after the close of the markets last night and reported record revenue. Sales came in at $990.3 million for the quarter. This was a 42% improvement in revenue compared to the same period last year.

Internet Awaiting Twitter Announcement

twitter_bird_bigger

Internet Awaiting Twitter Announcement

Rumors are stirring that one of the advancements that Twitter plans to unveil this afternoon with be inline photos and video. This will be a nice addition that will make video and photo Twitter third party applications unneeded in the future. The feature was made available by mistake back in July to a limited number of users. And some code present on the site today provides for a picture icon when a picture is attached to a tweet. A similar feature is well represented by the options offered by Brizzly.

Ask America Launches on Yahoo! News

yahoo news

Ask America Launches on Yahoo! News

Yahoo! News has a new section on their website, “Ask America,” a politic forum and polling site. This site asks the public about political issues that will affect the November midterm elections. These issues vary between immigration, clean energy, outsourcing, the environment and recent disasters, the health bill, the economy, and our national security. It asks users their opinion, and allows them to interact and discuss with other users.

Bloglines is Scheduled to Shut Down

Bloglines

Bloglines is Scheduled to Shut Down

Just in time and much to the excitement of most, Bloglines is scheduled to shut down. The tumultuous history of the RSS feed, which is owned and operated by IAC, a property of Ask.com is issuing a statement today regarding more in-depth information behind the decision to shut it down. The official shut down arrangement of Bloglines is set to occur as of October 1, 2010.

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