Posts Tagged ‘barry-schwartz’
New Zealand: Even Google Isn’t Sure Where It Is
Poor New Zealand. Nobody is quite sure exactly where it is. A favorite joke on tourists in Sydney, my Australian friends tell me, is to convince them that the Sydney Harbor Bridge is actually a bridge to New Zealand (it isn’t, New Zealand is about 1,400 miles away). And the HBO show Flight Of The Conchords has made ignorance of New Zealand a running theme.
But at the very least Google should get it right. But Barry Schwartz has noticed that the top result for a search for Google Ireland on Google itself returns a top result of not Google.ie, but Google.nz. As does a search for Google Egypt.
Neither Ireland nor Egypt are actually New Zealand. It’s in a totally different hemisphere.
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LockerBlogger Launches Social Network For Professional Athletes, Coaches and Fans
There are many social networks catered towards the athletic community, such as eFans, Weplay, Sportsmates and others. And fan-based social networks like SuperFan and TopFans also let users pay homage to professional athletes. LockerBlogger is entering the already crowded space as a sports-centric community that connects athletes, coaches, and fans.
The social network’s hook is to get pro and famous athletes to create profiles where they can blog, post video content and give fans an inside look into their lives and training. In turn, fans can connect with professional athletes in a more engaging way.
Professional athletes can create “Pro” profiles and blog, post a voice messages, put up photos and videos. Athletes can aslo link their accounts to their Twitter stream, and access the streams (and Tweet) from LockerBlogger. And the profile is a marketing tool that athletes can use towards branding. Coaches can feature “How-To Video Clinics ,” which are videos about various skills in the fields that they have expertise in. Coaches can also post schedules, put up pictures and videos of previous games, and send out messages.
LockerBlogger already features more than 140 pro athletes, including Don Mattingly (MLB), Lawrence Taylor (NFL), Larry Johnson (NFL), Sam Casell (NBA), Jason Kidd (NBA), and Chad Morgenthaler (pro fisher).
Whie LockerBlogger has a sleek interface and innovative multimedia features for professional athletes to use, the obstacle the network will face (besides competition) is being able to drive traffic to its site. But LockerBlogger says it will soon implement Facebook Connect and launch a Facebook App.
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Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There’s An App For That Too.
Yesterday, we talked a bit about how some companies are clearly trying to capitalize on the Swine Flu craze that is sweeping the nation. Naturally, someone just had to make an iPhone app.
And the winner is IntuApps, which has Swine Flu Tracker, waiting for approval from Apple before it’s released into the App Store. IntuApps’ Barry Schwartz, who is also a blogger, sent along some screenshots of the app. In it, you can see the current Threat Level for the disease, a map showing confirmed and suspected cases, a symptoms area to inform people, and an alert page for breaking news on Swine Flu.
Everyone is joking about Swine Flu because of the whole pig angle, but it is actually a serious threat. And while this iPhone app may be the latest thing to capitalize on it, it’s also pretty useful as a way to know what areas to avoid on the go. It’s good to know that IntuApps will be giving the app away for free when it is available in the App Store.
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