Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

MySpace Gets Serious with Its Social Gaming Platform

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Trying to revitalize itself as once a major force in the social networking arena, MySpace is beefing up its social gaming service in an effort perhaps to catch up with the popularity of social games on Facebook. At the Games Developers Conference, MySpace has launched a new MySpace Games experience – creating a more social gaming environment with new set of tools and functionality for both users and developers.

MySpace launched its new game site at myspace.com/games. For MySpace users, the new MySpace Games Gallery offers more features including game notifications, personalized game recommendations, discover new games from their friends’ Stream, and popular game charts. MySpace users can also rate the games to enhance search results and recommendations.

For game developers, MySpace is providing a simple and user-friendly platform for independent game developers as well as robust support for premium games for its partner major development game developers.

MySpace games engagement will also be improve as games are to be merchandized in more areas and shared easily among users.

MySpace also announced the new Neon for  iPhone application. This application will provide users access to their MySpace games while on the go as well as make it easy for them to interact with games on their iPhones. All the other things that users can do on MySpace Games on the web are carried over to the iPhone app plus the ability to install games remotely.

So, what do you think? Can MySpace bring back its glory days through social games? Or is Facebook already deep into the game that it will be difficult for MySpace to rock Facebook’s dominance? Will you be using MySpace games?

Google Adds Street View to Google Map Marker Edit Option

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As if the edit features recently introduced by Google which lets you modify a marker for specifica places that you happen to know was entered incorrectly is not enough, Google is adding a new feature which will make things easier. Starting today, Street View is now part of the handy reference that you can use when editing place markers on Google Maps.

This means that if you see a place marker which was incorrectly placed on Google Maps and you want to edit it, you can now use Street View to take a closer look at a particular place. Of course this will lead you into mark a specific spot better and more accurate since you are actually marking the exact spot as displayed by  Street View.

By introducing this feature, Google is encouraging Google Maps users to mark places at the entrance of the place and as much as possible avoid marking in the center of a street block. This can now be easily done through the Street View. But this is applicable only for places with available Street View. As you all know not all the known places mapped by Google maps would have corresponding Street View. In this cases, the marker can still be placed at the center of a block.

So, in case you find a specifically marked spot on Google Maps which you believe is incorrect you can edit this by clicking on the marker to display the infowindow. Click on the “more” link and then click the “Move marker” link in the drop down menu. Then you can drag the marker to the right spot on Google maps.

Pretty cool, right? So, have you used Google Maps before? Do you find the place markers useful or utterly useless?

Foursquare is on a Roll! To Launch Free Analytics Tool

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Foursquare is really gearing up to go big time in the next couple of months perhaps. The location-based social network is all over the news the past few days.  Well, what can you expect? It’s closest rival, Gowalla is also up on its feet with new features and new platforms lately.

So, for Foursquare’s latest arsenal NYT’s Bits Blog is reporting that Foursquare is about to roll out a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks. This tool will allows business establishment owners to get a grasp of information about people who are visiting their business establishments. It will also help store owners in knowing certain demographics about their reglar customers as well as learn how they could make new customers become regular ones.

In addition, the new Foursquare tool will also allow business owners gather a range of real-time data about usage, the number of Foursquare users who have  “checked in”, when these people arrived, male-to-female customer ratio as well as data about the times of day where there were more visitors in their establishments.  If you’re running a business establishment, this information will be very useful for decision making.

Finally, the new feature will also include a staff page for each establishments wherein employees would be able to “socialize” with customers.

Of course, to protect user privacy, such feature will be in an opt-in, opt-out feature.

Google Intros Public Data Explorer Tool in Labs

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Not so long ago, Google started experimenting on public data search feature that lets users find useful statistics while searching for information. This has been expanded later on to include World Bank statistics including population and demographics data on a global scale. Now, Google is expanding this service by launching the Google Public Data Explorer.

Google Public Data Explorer is an experimental visualization tool that is being released under Google Labs. It lets you easily explore, visualize and communicate large datasets through animated charts and maps. What’s good about the Public Data Explorer is the fact that it makes all these happen easily and without requiring data expertise to view meaningful and rich statistical data sets. And the datasets updates automatically through time.

Once you’ve mashed-up enough datasets, the Google Public Data Explorer makes it easy for you to share them by embedding it on your website or blog.

Now here’s the exciting part. Once you’ve embedded a statistical graph on your website or blog, your users can click on a play button and watch the graphs changes in real-time.

Google Public Data Explorer currently culls data sets from various sources such as the World Bank, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, OECD, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, California Department of Education, Eurostat and more.

Google Public Data Explorer is a pretty useful tool if you’re working in development projects or research. It’s your alternative to the costly proprietary statistical databases being offered by commercial vendors.

You may want to check out the Google Public Data Explorer and see if you can make use of it.

Delicious is Alive, Goes to Chrome as an Extension

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Delicious, the social bookmarking site  has been pretty quiet for the past couple of months.  While the site is still alive and kicking nothing much has been heard from it for a long time now. No news, no updates and no new features, until now. And guess what’s keeping the Delicious folks busy? A Delicious Extension that sits right on your Google Chrome’s toolbar.

Yes folks, you read it right, Delicious a Yahoo property just got a new iteration as a Chrome extension.  Don’t get me wrong here, there’s nothing utterly incorrect about this. It’s just don’t I don’ t really expect Delicious to make its presence felt anew by way of Google Chrome extension.

Anyway, what does this early beta of  Delicious Chrome Extension has to offer? Pretty much actually. It lets you sync your Delicious bookmarks, get all your bookmarks right on the Chrome Omnibar,  bookmark a current page in just a click of the Delicious button and search your bookmarks right on the current Chrome tab you are viewing.

The Delicious Chrome Extension works pretty much the same way as other Chrome Extensions. But to guide you in using it properly, the Delicious team has prepared this guided tour.

And to install the Delicious Chrome Extension, just click this link. After installing you just need to register your Delicious account and you’re all set to go.

Would-Be Buyers of E-Book Readers Want to Get the iPad

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Hot on the heels of the just announced pre-order and availability dates of the Apple iPad, here comes an interesting report from a survey conducted by  ChangeWave Research. According to the report – 40% of would be e-reader buyers would like to get the iPad than the Amazon Kindle, Sony E-Reader or Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

ChangeWave surveyed 3,171 consumers right after Apple announced the iPad sometime in February.  Respondents were presented with the features and capability of the iPad before they were asked if they are keen on getting it.  The results showed that 4% respondent that they will most likely buy the iPad, while 9% answered somewhat likely.

Quite interestingly, the percentage of those who answered that they are most likely to buy the iPad is almost the same percentage as those who plans to buy it prior to the iPad’s launch. This means that after knowing about the specs and features of the iPad, those who wants to get it remains the same.

To make more meaning to their data, ChangeWave also compared pre-launch demand of the iPhone and the iPad and found that the pre-launch demand for the iPad is greater than the pre-launch demand for the iPhone.

Another interesting findings of the report showed that current Kindle and other e-book readers replied that they would have bought the iPad if it were already available when they purchased their current e-readers. So, this somehow shows how the iPad will affect sales of existing e-books since potential buyers might also consider getting the iPad instead.

So, let me now turn the table to you our dear readers. If you are planning to get an e-book reader, will you consider getting the iPad or the other e-book readers available in the market today?