Gabriel Oliveira

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Finalmente um stream de música no Brasil | Rdio launching in Brazil, boosting the local music streaming offer http://smf.is/1zr2Vx

If you’re in the U.S. or in Europe, services like Pandora, Spotify and Deezer may be part of your daily life; but if you’re in Brazil, you also know that the music streaming offer is much more reduced in this country. Well, things may be about to change, as Rdio…

It looks like Google is pulling a Steve Jobs with Chrome: They are going to eliminate the Caps Lock key from all the notebooks made for that operating system. Why? Because they know better and we are all idiots.

According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments, because people will not be able to write all in capital letters. I'm not a fan of the caps lock key myself. I never use it, so it can go to hell, for all I'm concerned. But taking away choice from people is not good, especially when this is not going to improve the quality of comments.

FIRST, PEOPLE WOULD STILL BE ABLE TO WRITE AS MUCH AS THEY WANT IN CAPITAL LETTERS. SEE, MY LEFT PINKY DID THAT, NOT THE CAP LOCKS.

then, people would be able to write all without using any caps at all, which i find just as annoying as writing all in caps. maybe the next step is to enforce proper capitalization for all text fields. and is google also going to forbid the unnecessary repetition of exclamation and interrogation marks!!!!!!?????

At the end, improving the quality of comments doesn't depend on the caps lock key. People who virtually raise their voices and insult on the internet will continue to do so. What really improves the quality is moderation and, ultimately, education. [SAI]

Original image by Shutterstock

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OneRiot’s recently ventured into the advertising world with RiotWise, an ad format which places content in an emphasized position in their realtime feed. A few weeks ago, the realtime search engine launched a pilot program of RiotWise Trending Ads, a stream of ads that correspond to trending topics as they emerge across the social web. And today, after partnering with select iPhone Apps, Twitter Clients and Search Engines (Including UberTwitter and Digsby), OneRiot’s Realtime Ad Network, RiotWise, is now available to all developers.

RiotWise’s ads are comprised of content that similar to within Google, are served up via keywords being searched for. But unlike Google, advertisers aren’t bidding on keywords. Instead, content producers strike a deal with OneRiot to place their content in an emphasized (but clearly labeled) place in their realtime feed within the search engine. In the end, OneRiot’s ambitions are to help the content producer improve click-through rates by sending highly-targeted readers whose intent is to find specific content.

RiotWise’s Trending Ads will match trending topics with display ads that are highly relevant to the same topics within an application such as a Twitter client or iPhone app. Similar to the ads displayed alongside search engine results, OneRiot says the realtime relevance results in a higher click through rate on the ads. The system is enabled by OneRiot’s realtime search technology and PulseRank relevancy algorithm. OneRiot helps developers monetize social web applications such as Twitter apps, IM clients and iPhone apps and shares advertiser revenue with the application developer.

Now OneRiot is reporting that RiotWise ads have been performing at 3 to 4 times the average industry standard click through rates (CTR) for ads in realtime web apps (Twitter clients, iPhone apps, etc.). Developers also have flexibility to display RiotWise ads in the stream or correlating to trending topics.

Of course with these realtime ads, OneRiot runs the risk of surfacing irrelevant or spammy content. But as a realtime search engine, OneRiot has invested heavily in spam prevention and is constantly sorting through millions of pieces of content to determine what is relevant and what isn’t. As long as OneRiot produces quality advertising content, the new ad format looks to be a viable and profitable monetization tool for both publishers and developers.

VMware is a great tool for running Windows and Linux anywhere, but OS X clients are not supported. Snow Leopard can be made to run on Windows, and Mac-hacking blog iHackintosh has the nitty-gritty on getting it working.

In order to get Snow Leopard working in VMware, you'll need to be on an Intel-based Windows machine (AMD currently isn't supported) with a retail copy of Snow Leopard, as well as a Snow Leopard VMware disk file, downloadable from many sources (iHackintosh lists a few). The process requires tweaking a lot of settings in VMware, as well as some disk switching and fast finger work, but overall the process isn't too difficult. We talk a lot about using VMware to run Windows on a Mac, which is often the more necessary case, but this is certainly a nice option if, say, you're thinking about making the Mac switch but want to extensively test drive the OS first. Hit the link for instructions on how to get set up.

When Preetam Mukherjee started Marcellus.tv in March 2007, his company was one of the very few players in the professional online video hosting space. He believed he was building a killer product that would become a blockbuster and would compete handily with the one established player in the space, Brightcove. To ensure that he wouldn’t tip off any potential competitors, he went into “stealth mode”.  Secrecy was the key to success. He would not even tell his close friends what he was building until his product was complete (after all, who can you trust these days?). Then he would send Mike Arrington an email, get a TechCrunch feature and watch fame and fortune beat a path to his door.

But as happens to nearly all secretive startups like Marcellus, the blockbuster never materialized, and the attention never came. When Marcellus did come out of stealth in September 2008, there were many online video platforms available, most of which had better features than Marcellus. Preetam got his TechCrunch mention and experienced a huge spike in traffic for a few days. But when the dust settled, he found himself back in obscurity. Moreover, it was like having a really bad hangover—his product didn’t entirely meet customer needs and no one seemed to care.

As I’ll tell you later, Preetam’s story does have a happier ending, but that’s not how it is for most startups. That’s the problem with stealth. Startup guru, Eric Ries says one or two of every 10 companies he meets have what he calls a “stealth-disease”. They are too afraid to show something imperfect to the world or are afraid that a competitor will steal their idea. And they think that when they launch their product will make front-page news and grant them blockbuster success. Wasn’t it Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”?

Well, Emerson was wrong. The harsh reality is that even if you did build a better mousetrap, no one would find you. To be known, you have to have a great story and tell it to the right people. And to build a great product, you need to get all the feedback you can from potential customers, marketing experts, venture capitalists, lawyers and accountants.

When you’re starting up, you usually have a great idea and think you know what your customers need. But your customers don’t even know what they need—they know what they don’t like and think they know what they want—but they don’t know what they need. Customers will ultimately buy only those things they really need – no matter how good your product or sales pitch.

Learning what a customer needs is an iterative process.  You try something, get feedback.  Both you and your customer learn more and you try again. You keep doing this until you have something which is so compelling that the customer will pay money to have it—that’s when you know you have a killer product. But you can’t get feedback if you’re in stealth. You only have yourself to talk to.

Most entrepreneurs say they are in stealth because they are worried about competitors stealing their ideas. This can be a risk if you have such a simple idea that just by hearing it, someone can replicate it. If this is the case, then you do have a lot to worry about. But even in this case, what will ultimately make the difference between success and failure isn’t your idea but your ability to execute and dominate your market very fast. You need a superb management team including top notch marketing and sales staff, great industry connections, and deep-pocked investors. You aren’t going to get any of these things by staying locked up in your basement.

If you’re competing with the big guys and are worried about them stealing your ideas, it’s the same story—it boils down to execution. As Eric Ries says, “If a startup can’t innovate faster than a much larger competitor, stealth isn’t going to make the difference —they’re toast”.  It may also be that fear of big companies is overblown: those who have worked for one know that it’s incredibly hard to get a manager at a big company to do something new, even if your goal is to give your ideas away.

What about the big PR moment? This is also not so simple. To get beyond a TechCrunch launch feature, you need to build a relationship with journalists and analysts. They need to speak to your customers and learn what they think of you. They want to see detailed market analysis and to gain a deep understanding of why this market is important. Beyond press mentions, PR is about relationships. If you want to get quoted, you need to be an easy source—be accessible, willing to give information on background, and don’t expect to be quoted.

There is no linear ROI in PR, which can be hard for techies to understand. It’s all about relationships and patience. Once you are mentioned in one publication, then it becomes much easier to leverage that into other coverage because you have a stamp of approval. But make no mistake, PR is a never ending process. One TechCrunch article may be a good beginning but it is never sufficient to ensure the success of a company. So all that time you spend in stealth not talking to journalists is time your competition has to build a strong relationship with the media while you sit around admiring yourself in the mirror.

In a few rare instances, stealth may make some sense. Celebrity involvement is one example pointed out to me by Mike Butorin, founder of Projec.to and Song.ly. If Ashton Kutcher is launching a company, then operating in public may actually distract the engineers from their jobs to the point that nothing gets done due to the media circus that ensues. Another good reason to be in stealth is if a company is built around a technology or idea that it hopes to patent but has not yet filed. In that case, stealth protects the intellectual property and the future of the company by raising high barriers to entry in the future. But these types of examples represent the tiny minority of startups. Most startups use ideas that others have had and will live or die based on how well they execute on those ideas.

So how did things turn out for Marcellus.tv and Preetam? They managed to recover from stealth-disease but only barely. After launch, Marcellus.tv spent a year in a closed beta, performing rapid-fire iteration based on regular feedback from early customers. Marcellus launched out of beta as a white-label video hosting and streaming service in August 2009 and was one of many in the space. But the company managed to keep prices at rock-bottom levels through smart usage of cloud computing. The sales team worked the phones and existing customers both to get feedback and leads. Word spread and the customer base grew. They expect to be profitable early next year. The company never developed a PR juggernaut but having loyal customers willing to recommend the service to others has thus far overcome that weak spot. Preetam’s parting shot to me was quite clear. “To hell with stealth,” he wrote in an email. Words to live—or die—by.

Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Neste sábado, dia 5, às 10 horas, o Movimento dos Sem Mídia (MSM) fará uma manifestação em frente ao prédio da Folha de S.Paulo (Rua Barão de Limeira, 425, centro da capital paulista), para protestar contra a publicação de um artigo leviano e irresponsável que acusou o presidente Lula de tentar “subjugar sexualmente” um jovem nos anos 1980. O artigo de uma página inteira, de autoria do ex-petista Cesar Benjamin, atual colunista da Folha, “foi forjado no ódio, na inveja e na covardia e é um estupro ao jornalismo”, afirma Eduardo Guimarães, presidente do MSM.

Sobre o artigo de Cesar Benjamin, que “estuprou” sua própria biografia de profundo conhecedor do Brasil e de intelectual brilhante, muitos já se pronunciaram criticamente – prefiro silenciar na tristeza por mais este ato instintivo e rancoroso. Sugiro apenas a leitura da resposta ponderada e firme do jornalista Gilberto Maringoni, publicada na Carta Maior. Membro do PSOL e crítico de esquerda do governo Lula, ele não poupou críticas ao texto do “Cesinha”, que estaria fazendo o jogo da direita brasileira às vésperas da sucessão presidencial. “Fico envergonhado com o papel que ele está desempenhando. Seu passado não merece isso. Mas a História irá julgá-lo”.

“Um horror” dos herdeiros de Frias

Já com relação ao jornal da famíglia Frias, a publicação do artigo sem qualquer apuração prévia ou rigor jornalístico liquida qualquer ilusão sobre o ecletismo da Folha. Após usar um ex-petista para desferir ataques pessoais ao presidente da República, ela mesma confessou sua leviandade, mas sem fazer autocrítica pública – talvez temendo processos jurídicos. Militantes que estiveram presos com Lula nos cárceres da ditadura, entre abril e maio de 1980, negaram taxativamente a história bizarra. Vale registrar a resposta íntegra de José Maria de Almeida, presidente do PSTU e outro crítico do governo Lula, que qualificou a insinuação de “baixaria”.

O reconhecimento cabal do “estupro” perpetrado pela Folha, porém, ocorreu com a entrevista de João Batista dos Santos, o ex-militante do Movimento pela Emancipação do Proletariado (MEP) que teria sido o alvo da “investida” de Lula na cela. Ele considerou “um horror” o artigo, disse que isso nunca ocorreu e lamentou a publicação do texto sem ouvir os envolvidos no caso. Por ironia da história, Santos trabalhou numa granja da famíglia Frias em São José dos Campos, no interior paulista, na década de 1990. Para ele, se Octavio Frias de Oliveira, o barão da Folha, estivesse vivo (ele faleceu em 2007), “esteve artigo não teria sido publicado”.

Credibilidade e tiragem em queda

Depois de cunhar a expressão “ditabranda” para se referir aos trágicos anos da ditadura militar e de publicar uma “ficha policial” falsa contra a ministra Dilma Rousseff, a Folha dá outro tiro no pé. A publicação do asqueroso artigo fere a pouca credibilidade que ainda resta a este veículo e poderá resultar em novas quedas da sua tiragem. Quando da “ditabranda”, o jornal perdeu mais de 3 mil assinantes, segundo fontes da própria empresa. Já no caso da falsa ficha policial, o jornal foi forçado a reconhecer timidamente o erro, temendo a abertura de um processo criminal.

Entre outros fatores, a perda de credibilidade do jornal da famíglia Frias ajuda a explicar a brutal queda da sua tiragem nos últimos anos. Segundo levantamento do IVC (Instituto Verificador de Circulação), a Folha é hoje o vigésimo quarto jornal em vendas avulsas no país, ficando atrás do Estadão (19º lugar) e de O Globo (15º lugar). Entre janeiro e setembro de 2009, ela vendeu em média 21.849 exemplares nas bancas. Uma tiragem pífia se comparada aos 489 mil exemplares vendidos em suas edições dominicais em outubro de 1996. Atualmente, o jornal só se sustenta graças à publicidade e à venda de assinaturas, que atinge basicamente a chamada classe média.

Com os “estupros” que a Folha insiste em praticar, a tendência é que a sua tiragem despenque ainda mais. O ato organizado pelo MSM poderá servir como mais uma pá de cal neste jornal leviano e golpista, que agride constantemente a democracia e a ética jornalística.

Open-source users will be a bit less inclined to use MySQL following Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

The news comes from a report by the 451 Group, which surveyed people in the open-source community about the issues surrounding the acquisition.

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The 451 Group surveyed 347 people. Of those, 82.1% now use MYSQL. By 2011, 78.7% of respondents expect to use MySQL. The total will decline to 72.3% by 2014.

The Oracle acquisition has a part to play in that decline. 15% of open-source users and 14.4 % of current MySQL users said they would be less likely to use MySQL if it is acquired by Oracle.

The news is not all that dire. The majority - 57.9% of all users and 63.9% of MySQL users - indicated that they would continue to use MySQL where appropriate.

On the flip side, Oracle Database usage is expected to rise from 19.3% today to 19.6% in 2011 and 21.6% in 2014.

About 32% of respondents said they would prefer that MySQL be turned over to a foundation. But only 4 percent said that they would want Oracle to sell MySQL to another software company.

But there may be more trouble ahead. European authorities have particular concern about the future of MySQL under Oracle ownership and have it under review.

More about the report is available on the 451 Group's web site.

Em fase experimental, o Google anunciou uma API para facilitar o compartilhamento de conteúdo online na rede social mais popular do Brasil, o Orkut.

A API do Google permite que donos de sites de conteúdo ofereçam ferramentas para que seus leitores compartilhem links para suas páginas com seus amigos no orkut.

A nova API, permite que os usuários insiram conteúdo em suas atividades ou usem o recurso “promover” do orkut para divulgar seus links favoritos.  O recurso chega em boa hora, uma vez que vários blogs e sites do Brasil oferecem ferramentas para compartilhamento de conteúdo em serviços como Twitter e Facebook, mas ainda não oferecem nenhuma integração com a rede social mais popular do país.

A integração é simples e pode ser feita usando versões HTTP ou javascript da API, para dar flexibilidade aos desenvolvedores na implementação. A experiência de uso é simples, basta que o usuário clique no botão, e ele será redirecionado para uma página de autenticação (caso não esteja logado) ou diretamente para a página de compartilhamento, conforme a imagem acima.
O primeiro serviço a implementar a integração com a nova API do Google foi o AddThis, que já permite o compartilhamento com o orkut na sua lista de serviços suportados, como você pode ser visto no ReadWriteWeb Global (basta clicar em Share, e na sequência clicar na logo do Orkut). Para os desenvolvedores que pretendem acrescentar compartilhamento com o orkut em seus serviços, a documentação e os códigos de compartilhamento podem ser encontrados aqui. Assim que soubemos da notícia, resolvemos testar a API e colocar um widget de compartilhe no orkut aqui no ReadWriteWeb Brasil, como você pode ver ao final deste post. Um dos nossos autores, o @edmarferreira, rapidamente desenvolveu um simples plugin para que pudéssemos ver a API em ação. O resultado é um plugin ainda em testes, mas que já permite que qualquer blog Wordpress adicione um widget para compartilhamento no Orkut em seus posts. Caso queira testar o plugin OrkutShare, basta fazer o download aqui e subir para o seu Wordpress (por sua conta e risco!).
E então caro leitor, será que o compartilhamento de links no orkut será uma ferramenta importante para geração de tráfego para os sites e blogs que hoje compartilham links no Twitter e Facebook? Deixe sua opinião nos comentários.

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Later today, Digg will open up its rumored read/write API. Up until now, developers could only read data from Digg. With the new API, web and desktop apps will also be able to contribute data to Digg. This will allow developers to write desktop and web applications that enable users to, for example, interact with Digg without having to go to the site. Digg will use the OAuth protocol to authorize applications. According to Forbes' Taylor Buley, however, the writable API will not allow users to submit stories remotely.

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Buley spoke to Digg's lead API developer Jeff Hodsdon, who acknowledged that there are still a few obstacles that stand in the way of remote submissions. The two main roadblocks are duplicate detection and captchas. Digg currently makes users jump through a few hoops before they can submit a story. This ensures that the submission pipeline on Digg remains relatively free of duplicate entries and spam. Implementing these safety measures in the API will be difficult.

Competing with the Real-Time Web

As our own Sarah Perez pointed out earlier this year, a full read/write API would allow Digg to compete with the real-time Web. To do this, Digg doesn't really need to enable users to submit stories remotely. What Digg really needs is a way to get more users to vote for stories more often.

Currently, it can take hours - and sometimes days - before a story appears on Digg, while services like Tweetmeme can pick up trends and breaking news stories on Twitter within minutes. To pick up speed, Digg needs to get its voting mechanism into more places - and the new API would allow the company to do just that.

Earlier this month, we reported that Sports Illustrated had leaked the news that The Who would be performing at this season’s upcoming Super Bowl, more specifically Super Bowl XLIV. Well, give it to the sports guys, as they were right. Who would’ve thought?

On Thursday, the NFL issued the official news during the Turkey toss up between the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys. People should be stoked, as we’re likely to hear America’s greatest TV themes — “Baba O’Riley”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, and “Who Are You”  — all while we munch down on America’s greatest heart attack-inducing goodies.

It all goes down February 7th at Dolphin’s Stadium in Miami, FL.

Continue reading Nova DSLR concept reminds us that cameras need not be boring

Nova DSLR concept reminds us that cameras need not be boring originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The rumors published last week may be true after all: Google is testing a new search interface on random people, as these screenshots from Gizmodo reader Matt Karolian confirm.

Like the Google Wave-inspired interface for Gmail, the new user interface is cleaner and bolder than the current version, offering more options to the user. It may still be far from deployment, however, but it's good to see some changes after so many years of same all same all.

Large Hadron Collider reboots, makes first protonic bang! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.