Daily Bits

Internet

Digg Supports Twitter @Anywhere and Other OpenID Standards

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In the “socially-induced” tech world that we are living in, the old adage that “no man is an island” doesn’t hold true anymore. No matter how geek and anti-social you are, now is the right time foresake all habits, get out into the open, connect and socialize. Even for the pioneers of web 2.0 applications and tools this is now an SOP. If you want to stay cool and relevant to the social world – open up to other online sites even if they use to be your rival.

Such is the case with Digg.  Digg is struggling to stay relevant. After all, it used to be one of the pillars of the web 2.0 phenomenon. It won’t definitely not yield to competition easily. So the Digg folks are rolling out a couple of integration features with popular online services.

First, Digg will definitely support Twitter @anywhere framework which was just announced a couple of days ago. It’s Facebook Connect integration was pretty successful, giving Digg increased in user engagement and a registration increase of around 20-30%.

And after surveying around 14 thousand of its users, Digg is now ready to roll out some more integration with other third party site based on survey responses. So, aside from Facebook Connect, soon you will be able to log in to Digg using your Google, Yahoo, and Twitter accounts. These three plus Facebook are the ones identified by Digg users which they want to use when logging in to Digg.

In addition, Digg will continue to support OpenID accounts. So if a third party site is supporting OpenID accounts, you can use them also for logging in to Digg.

Twitter Wants to be @anywhere

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Twitter just announced its latest strategy at possibly conquering the web – Twitter @anywhere.  The Twitter blog describes this simply as a new set of frameworks that will add the Twitter experience anywhere on the web.  In other words, Twitter will soon be rolling out a framework that will let you do your Twitter activities where ever you maybe on the web – minus the need to visit Twitter.com.

Twitter @Anywhere aims to bring all the features of Twitter that we have all grown to love and some even hate – read tweets from friends, celebrities, companies, media outlets, fictional characters and more, follow any account and be followed by any account and interact with the whole Twitter community. Again without leaving what you are currently doing on the web.

And how does Twitter plans to implement this? Not through APIs. It’s too complicated for simple folks like us but rather a more simpler method – through Javascript.

The Twitter blog also stated that once Twitter @Anywhere is ready for launch, there will be more participating sites including Amazon, Adage, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, Meebo, NYT, Yahoo and YouTube. Yup, those are the sites that have become part of our daily online fare.

Soon, you’d be able to follow your favorite NYT journalist directly from her byline or tweet a video right from where you are in YouTube. Or if you’re a Yahoo fan, you can discover new people to follow on Twitter while getting your daily news fix from Yahoo.

Sounds promising? Actually it is. If only Twitter gave some examples on how this is going to implemented. But then, patience is a virtue dear readers.  We can count on the Twitter folks to roll this out the soonest time possible.

Big Changes Are About to Happen with Digg

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Do you still use Digg for bookmarking and sharing these bookmarks? Do you still maintain a Digg page? If you do, well expect to see some big changes in Digg in the coming weeks. These changes were announced by Digg CEO Jay Adelson during the Digg’s annual SXSW party.  Some of the changes that you should expect include – streamlined submission process, new personalized homepage, unlimited amount of topic pages, new commenting system and better curation tools.

Read Write Web got the full details of these changes. You may check out their coverage or read the summary below.

Personalized homepage – The new Digg personalized homepage will be populated by popular stories among your friends in relation to the topic that interest you.  This will become your default Digg homepage and not the generic Digg main page anymore. So, once this new feature kicks in, it is imperative that you sign in with Digg.

De-emphasizing the Power of Submitters – The new Digg will now put more premium on who votes for stories rather than who submit them. It will also put more emphasis on third-party services like Twitter and Facebook by allowing auto-submission of stories from these services.

More Twitter and Third-Party Integration – The Digg folks finally realized that to stay relevant in this “social integrated” market, they have to establish a relationship with other sites. So, more integration with Twitter as well as other social sites will be established in the coming weeks.

A Whole New Platform – Digg has stripped down its old infrastructure and completely rebuild a new platform. Possible directions will be more advertising and monetization option for Digg traffic, and the old Digg effect will no longer apply.

All these changes will be rolled out in the coming weeks. Digg is also testing beta testers and you can sign up here.

Smartphone Phone Users Want More Freebies

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Here’s another interesting statistics from comScore, this time regarding the behavior of smartphone users. According to the report,  smartphone users’ behavior has been changed, whereas before smartphones were used to access email, calendar and contacts while on the go, now more smartphone owners are using their devices as much for personal productivity as for entertainment purposes.

Around 74% of smartphone owners are using their mobile devices for personal use. And when asked how much time they spent using their smartphone at various times of the day, the result showed that smartphones are being used practically all through out the day.

So, what’s the point of these findings?  It is definitely very important if you are managing a brand campaign or even if simply running mobile advertisements. This opens up a huge audience base for your product and could result to sales if you can handle it pretty well.

But of course, businesses wanting to engage in mobile advertising would want to know how much of these smartphone users will be potential customers. In other words, how perceptive are they with mobile ads.

Surprisingly, comScore found out that there are quite a number of smartphone users who are willing to partake of what’s being offered on mobile ads.  Smartphone users are more than willing to take on grocery coupons, barcodes that can be scanned by the smartphones, savings offers on consumer products, movie theater offers and more.

Given this fact, if you’re planning to take on the mobile ad space for your products, be sure to make your ads engaging enough to merit a click or tap on your link from smartphone users. The mobile ad industry is still young and is bound to grow leaps and bounds in the coming days.

Despite the Criticisms, Apple iPad is Selling Like Hotcakes

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We have to give credit where credit is due. And in the case of the ongoing success being reaped by Apple at this early pre-order stage of its “magical and revolutionary” iPad, it’s just but natural to commend Apple for coming out with a great promotional. This is what Apple does best – introduce a new product, excite would-be customers, open it up for criticisms and then later on, offer the product for sale.

Once again, Apple has proven its marketing prowess. This early, the iPad is reportedly selling like hotcakes. An estimated 50,000 units were reportedly sold in the first two hours after the pre-order process started.  Stocks are dwindling down, affecting those who are still in the process of pre-ordering and choosing the pick-up option.

And while everybody else are busy, it was found out that the iPad filing has just passed through the FCC.  This heightens the excitement so more. So, it’s true – the magical product is indeed coming. I’m pretty sure when the FCC news broke out, more people started clicking on that pre-order button.

So, have you wondered why despite the criticisms that were hurled against the Apple iPad, many customers still purchased it?  Call it Apple consumerism. A disease that has inflicted me and the rest of the thousands of Apple fans who have pre-ordered the Apple iPad and who will pre-order it until supply lasts.

In case you’d want to ask, yes I’m pretty excited and couldn’t wait for April 3 to come.

Foursquare Ties Up with Starbucks, Free Barista Badges for Every Check-in

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Foursquare continues its quest for media hype dominance with yet another interesting feature. It just launched a new promotional gig that ties it up with Starbucks. So, on Thursday, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet and check-in to your Foursquare account, you will be rewarded with a barista badge.

The Starbucks barista badge can be earned if you’ve checked-in to five Startbucks outlet. Although, there’s no physical reward yet is given if you earn the barista badge, I’m pretty sure Starbucks and Foursquare will come with something to give out some form of physical rewards in the future. A free tall Cappuccino perhaps for every barista badge earned? This may sound appealing for frequent Startbucks customers, but Starbucks’ Chris Bruzzo, vice president for brand, content and online said that the company is eyeing different rewards set, not just free Starbucks drinks.

This is a rather unique gig and both companies stand a chance of getting positive gains from this deal. Starbucks can use Foursquare to gather feedbacks from clients and perhaps gain new clients as well since Foursquare members can easily share their feedback to their network of friends on Foursquare.

For Foursquare, it already gained from the deal since Starbucks is planning to use the Foursquare business analytics tools that it recently launched.

So, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet, don’t forget to check it in to your Foursquare account. You might be the first person to earn that “prestigious” barista badge.