The Me.dium sidebar got a nip, tuck, facelift or all of the above. With a few new options, the social sidebar is looking fierce. A new multi user chat capability, a direct Facebook connection, and a Me.dium social search box will have users socializing away on the new and improved sidebar. Peter, Ginevra and I tested out the new features by rendezvousing for a small chat this morning discussing some of PJN’s lesser attributes (which he has many of), sorry Peter. Here is a few screen shots of what the new options look like. If you haven’t downloaded the sidebar, you now have three more reasons to do so. Friend me on Me.dium (worldsnow) and lets test them out!
I went and saw Batman, The Dark Night this past weekend and was not disappointed. Touted as one of the best action flicks of all time, it delivered on all the hype. It was dark, it was gritty, and it was definitely a deviation from all the other Batman movies. I went to see the 4:20pm showing on Friday and thought that arriving twenty minutes early would be plenty of time to get a seat. To my surprise, half of Boulder decided to forgo work and hit the cinema. Instead of sitting in the break-neck section, me and friends traded our tickets in for a later showing. After waiting for about forty five minutes we got seats 15 rows up almost directly in the middle,perfect movie viewing position. The Dark Night smashed box office records by taking in over 155 million dollars this past weekend (I almost went again on Saturday).
Heath Ledger’s performance was more than acting. He took a role and made it his entire life and will most likely be awarded with an Oscar. It is my speculation that this is the end of the Christian Bale era as Batman. Not because of Bale’s acting (he was great too), but because Heath Ledger’s character is irreplaceable. Not to mention, Christian Bale is taking over the Terminator series. Most of the time, these movies come in trilogies and it seems nearly impossible to follow up after producing something as awe inspiring as this last production.
Suggestion: hit the movies as soon as possible and bring a snack, this movie runs around two and half hours.
If you want to talk movies or about anything else, contact me on Me.dium (worldsnow)
It is orientation time here in Boulder and there are incoming freshman everywhere. The University of Colorado campus is popping with tours, registration groups, and some lost students have even been venturing to the University Hill in search of food and fun. The incoming group of students, for the fall of 2008, represents the largest freshman class the University has ever seen. My cousin is arriving in Boulder middle of this week to attend his own session of orientation, hopefully he sees a better four years of football than I did. I just finished college and he is just getting started, can you say jealous?
Hopefully, I can properly teach him the “ropes” of Boulder, i.e where to go on the weekend, where to get the best used books and what restaurants are best for late night visits (Cosmos, Cosmos). If anyone has any suggestions on places I should take him while he is here, leave me some feedback on the blog or friend me on Me.dium (worldsnow).
For the company, the incoming freshman represent an opportunity. In the next few sessions of orientation, Me.dium will be hitting the streets. Teams of 3-5 people will be on campus “repping” orange and black to increase usage of the social sidebar and to put it at the forefront of CU social networking-THE CU Social Network.
So far, the new search engine has been a success. Me.dium has been popping up all over the Internet, ranging from the New York Times to Mashable, and the tweets have been non-stop. Thanks to everyone that has been so receptive of the new Social Search Engine. More posts to come as our Social Search Alpha evolves!
Me.dium launches Social Search Alpha - the first ever crowd-powered Search Engine
July 9, 2008, 7:59pm
Phew. So here’s our Social Search Alpha. As the title of this blog post says, it’s the first ever crowd-powered search engine. So what does that mean for you?
Me.dium’s Social Search enables our users to find relevant information based on the current surfing activity of other people. In other words, your search results are heavily influenced by what people are actually looking at online right now. This means we tend to surface news, reviews, pictures and videos that are hot, right now, according to crowds of people just like you. And as the activity of the crowds change, as the zeitgeist of the online community shifts, so do Me.dium’s search results. With Me.dium, you’ll always get a real view into what matters to the crowds right now.
It’s easy to join the crowds – to start influencing the search results that other people see. All you have to do is download our Social Toolbar and start surfing. Just over 2 million people have already done exactly that since we first launched it in August ‘07. The Me.dium Social Toolbar allows you to Surf the Web with your friends, see where your friends are online, communicate across web pages and – of course – search together. At the same time, you’re also helping Me.dium determine what web pages are hot right now, and which web pages are related to various terms. We build our search index in real-time from this aggregate and anonymous information. This means real people’s surfing activity, rather than robotic crawlers, determine what’s important and relevant in Me.dium’s Social Search index.
The other exciting aspect to this launch is the work we’re doing “under the hood” with Yahoo!
Me.dium’s Social Search leverages the Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) open web services platform. You can read more about what Yahoo are doing here. By leveraging Yahoo!’s Search infrastructure, we’re able to provide an entirely new level of crowd-powered information on top of fully comprehensive search results. This means our users get the best of both worlds.
Now… in the best traditions of “Alpha”, we’ve worked fast to get our product out there for you to play with, test, discuss, and let us know what you’d like to see next. Our Alpha is raw, there are a few bugs, and it only hints at what we have planned. But we hope it’s enough for you to get a feel for what we’re trying to do – i.e. bring crowd-powered search to the web.
We’d love it if you left a comment on this blog, Twitter us, or even popped in to our offices to have a chat. We’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say, and using that feedback to help us evolve Me.dium Social Search.
Check out what the media are saying here:
Two days and counting until the official release of the second generation iphone, who of you out there are waiting in line, or are planning to get your hands on one of the new devices? I have heard some not so exciting things, such as an increase in monthly service costs and that the new model is actually thicker than the first generation. Are theses things enough to deter me from wanting the new faster 3G Network, perhaps.
My suggestion would be to wait until there is an official mass consumer review, and the activation process gets panned out at AT&T before running to the closest Mac store. Not to mention, that to activate the iphone involves a trip to a local AT&T location. Why is technology going backwards? The first iphone could be activated from home in itunes. Is it because Steve Jobs in immensely afraid of iphones being cracked and opened up for use on other networks or the embarrassing news articles that reveal the million plus units that are “missing” from the network? I think yes. Even with these mishaps, it is hard to ignore the excitement and buzz that define Apple product releases. Instead of purchasing the new cheaper model of the iphone, I may wait to see what Blackberry has to offer in the upcoming months, Blackberry Bold anyone? Join the iphone rebellion.
