David’s Weekly Tech Reader

On 09.27.09, In Recommended Reading, Video, Water Cooler, by David, Comments: 0

Give me 10 minutes here and you will be caught up on all that is web 2.0 and social media. Here are my favorite articles from the around the web for the previous week. You can always follow my recommended stories in real-time through the Recommended Reading page or through my Lifestream.

Last 20 Select Articles

How NOT To Suck At BloggingPublished: September 24, 2009Source: Man Vs. Debt
This week marks the 6-month anniversary of the day I launched Man Vs. Debt! Yippee! It’s been a freaky journey up to this point. I feel like I swallowed both the red and blue pills in one big gulp. I rarely try to blog about blogging, however I thought it would be fun to reflect on what I’ve learned in these first 6 months. Before we get started, let me make something very clear. I didn’t title this post ‘How to be an awesome blog…
Shareaholic Collects Angel Funding RoundPublished: September 24, 2009Source: Xconomy
IT, deals, startups Wade Roush wrote: Shareaholic founder Jay Meattle was in touch today to say that his Cambridge startup has raised its first round of angel funding. Back in July, I reviewed Shareaholic’s popular browser plugin, which makes it easy to save or share material found on the Web via common social networking, social bookmarking, and news aggregator services. Meattle wasn’t specific about the size of the round, saying it…
Maine fishermen to benefit from stimulus fundsPublished: September 25, 2009Source: Daily Business Update
Associated Press STONINGTON, Maine – Maine fishermen are getting some financial help to replace their boats’ old diesel engines with new ones. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection says Maine has received $1.7 million in federal stimulus money earmarked for clean energy projects. Of that amount, $1.2 million will be distributed through the Maine Clean Marine Engine Program. Officials say the money will help the coastal economy and f…
Boston ranks as 9th-largest economy in U.S.Published: September 25, 2009Source: Boston Business News – Local Boston News | Boston Business Journal
Boston and New York may be equals when it comes to fielding strong athletic teams, but their economies are worlds apart. Boston’s economic output is valued at roughly $300 billion — good enough to rank ninth overall in the United States. But tops on that list is New York City, the only U.S. metropolitan area with a trillion-dollar economy, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
$10M for TetraphasePublished: September 25, 2009Source: Xconomy
VC, deals, Life Sciences Wade Roush wrote: Watertown, MA-based Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals has raised $10 million out of a planned $29.6 million equity financing round, according to regulatory documents filed Wednesday. The Harvard spinoff, which is using synthetic chemistry to develop new antibiotics for drug-resistant infections, previously raised $25 million in two tranches that closed in August 2008. Comments | Reprints | Share…
300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress ExpertPublished: September 17, 2009Source: Webdesigner Depot
WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms available today. And for good reason.It’s powerful enough to be a complete CMS, has every feature or function a blogger could dream of (either built in or available via plugins or custom functions), and it’s free and open source.While WordPress is incredibly powerful and easy to use on its most basic levels, it can also get pretty complicated, pretty quickly.Below are more than 300 resou…
People Spending More Time on Social SitesPublished: September 25, 2009Source: Digital Trends
Americans have been devoting 17 percent of all their Internet time to social networks like Facebook and blogging Web sites like Blogger. The percentage for last month is up from 6 percent a year earlier. The report comes from Nielsen Co. and follows its decision to team up with Facebook on a marketing program that helps advertisers measure how well their ads work on the online hangout. Nielsen estimates that ad spending on lead…
Fluffernutter: Massachusetts’ State Sandwich?Published: September 24, 2009Source: Serious Eats
[Photograph: Robyn Lee] It’s good to hear that the Massachusetts legislature has its priorities straight. The Fluffernutter sandwich (marshmallow Fluff plus peanut butter) may become the state’s official sandwich. According to the Boston Globe, it’s one of three foods, along with Necco Wafers and the Charleston Chew candy bar, that will be considered for official state status by a legislative committee tomorrow. As a Californian, this got me…
LE TOILET C’EST TROP CHIC!Published: September 25, 2009Source: OHLALA Mag
My Note: OMG – Funny Ads (Did I just use OMG?)

This is a funny campaign for Ambi Pur in Australia. A new line of toilet cleaner with unlike scents [Lavender and Lemon sounds like any other toilet cleaner to me ...] Anyway sex sells, but unfortunately it does not clean … and mister clean is not included :-( Deux more images AFTER THE JUMP.
ACORN taps Harshbarger for internal reviewPublished: September 22, 2009Source: Boston Business News – Local Boston News | Boston Business Journal
Community organizer ACORN, under fire for allegedly offering advise to individuals on ways to establish illegal businesses and evade taxes, has tapped former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead an internal review of the group’s operations.
Newbury Street falls out of US shopping’s top 10Published: September 24, 2009Source: Daily Business Update
(File photo: Lisa Poole for The Boston Globe) By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff At first glance, Newbury Street seems a glorious shrine to disposable income, an ideal venue for buying the latest fashions in elegant stores or sampling the latest uber chef delight while lunching al fresco. But as tony shopping districts go, Newbury Street may be losing some luster to the recession, according to a new report that surveys the world’s glitziest retail st…
25 of the Best Websites of Bands and MusiciansPublished: September 23, 2009Source: Vandelay Design Blog
Websites from various types of entertainment-related industries can often be a source of design inspiration. Bands and musicians need to have a website that is attractive to visitors and provides all of the necessary information that fans will want to find. In this post we’ll feature 25 websites for your design inspiration. Also, please see 35 Inspirational Websites Designs from the Music Industry. Chris Cornell Alan Jackson Darryl Worley Ju…
Trendsmap gives us a look at Twitter’s location API possibilitiesPublished: September 24, 2009Source: VentureBeat
While Twitter gears up to release a way to let users share their exact coordinates every time they tweet, Australian developers have given us a hint of such a service’s possibilities with Trendsmap. Developers at Melbourne, Australia-based Stateless Systems have taken latitudinal and longitudinal data from users’ profiles and compiled their tweets into word clouds that rest above a map. (Stateless says they’ll start incorporating the new ge…
Twones: Delicious for Streaming MusicPublished: September 24, 2009Source: ReadWriteWeb
If you’re the kind of music lover with playlists strewn across multiple web services, then Twones is the tool for you. Twones is best described as Delicious or Friendfeed for streaming music. The early beta site allows users to bookmark and organize music from more than 23 music services including Last.fm, Hype Machine, MOG and even MySpace. The company offers an audio footprint of where you’ve been and once you install the Firefox toolbar, it wi…
Wowd aims to replace PageRank with PopularityPublished: September 24, 2009Source: VentureBeat
Google has conspicuously avoided adding “real-time” search results to its search engine. By real-time, we mean the sort of results offered by Twitter — or items submitted a mere second or two earlier by any of a million sources. There’s not even a real-time project in Google Labs, so now is a good time for startups to try to run ahead, grabbing market share and, hopefully, loyal customers. Wowd is a Palo Alto-based startup packed with sea…
Social networks make it easy for 3rd parties to identify youPublished: September 24, 2009Source: Ars Technica
By now, it’s no secret that social networks (or really any websites) are sharing some of your usage data with advertising partners in order to provide more targeted ads. Most of the time, this data gets anonymized when it gets passed on so that theres no personally identifiable information attached to your browsing history. Or does it? I turns out that some social networks—including the majo…
iPhone MMS Update: AT&T’s Last Stand?Published: September 24, 2009Source: Mashable!
Late tomorrow morning, iPhone users in the U.S. will finally get a long-anticipated feature: Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). With a patch from iTunes, ATT iPhone owners will be able to quickly send pictures and videos to their friends.Of course, a lot of people seem to forget that almost every other phone has MMS capability. In fact, the iPhone has been MMS-capable since June, when iPhone OS 3.0 was released. The delay has been because of…
How to prepare for Google’s updated algorithmPublished: September 24, 2009Source: iMedia Connection: All Feeds
Changes in Google’s search formula could lead to changes in your page ranking. Here’s the scuttlebutt on the search giant’s latest update and the differences you can expect.
Why your conversion rates no longer matterPublished: September 24, 2009Source: iMedia Connection: All Feeds
This metrics standard has a fatal flaw that could misdirect your site optimization efforts. See what alternative paints a more complete picture of your site visitors.
How Online Tracking Companies Know Most of What You Do Online (and What Social Networks Are Doing to Help Them)Published: September 21, 2009Source: EFF.org Updates
This post is Part 2 of a series on user tracking on the web today. You can read Part 1 here. 3rd party advertising and tracking firms are ubiquitous on the modern web. When you visit a webpage, there’s a good chance that it contains tiny images or invisible JavaScript that exists for the sole purpose of tracking and recording your browsing habits. This sort of tracking is performed by many dozens of different firms. In this post, we’re going…

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David

David Laubner is an expert in the field of online marketing, product management, user-generated content and new media technology. His background includes numerous technology product launches and the founding of several internet startups. Follow David on Twitter.

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