Yahoo may stumble with Tumblr

The microblogging platform Tumblr is on the market and the expected buyer, Yahoo, almost certainly would burden the site with a layer of bureaucracy that will drive away many of its 100 million bloggers.
Blindly stumbling to reinvent itself, Yahoo is reportedly willing to spend $1.1 billion for Tumblr for one big reason: It would provide an instant supply of the youthful audience that the search engine desperately needs and woefully lacks.
Yahoo’s board approved the buy yesterday according to the Wall Street Journal. But the problem with the email giant owning Tumblr is twofold: Yahoo has no identity and it has demonstrated no ability to find one.
Yahoo’s track record for handling user-generated content is atrocious.
It purchased Flickr in 2005 when the photo-sharing site was at the forefront of the social media revolution. But Yahoo’s reign has meant unwanted censorship, embarrassing tech hiccups, a lack of innovation — and worst of all, a fundamental failure to recognize that Flickr’s greatest asset was in its early establishment of social networks.
A decade ago, Flickr was already identifying relationships among its users, allowing them to tag family members and friends.
Unfortunately, with an expected $1.1 billion price tag, that buyer will be all corporation and no Lady Gaga — who, by the way, would have been a match made in heaven for the site.

http://us.playstation.com/

Google Glass Can Now Do More - Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr Apps Released for Glasses

Google might have been mum on its much-buzzed-about glasses on day one of its big Google I/O Developer's Conference, but today the company has announced a series of new Glass-based applications.
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Elle magazine all unveiled new applications for the connected glasses, which overlay digital information in the physical world. The Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr options all allow Glass wearers to share their photos on the respective social networks straight from the glasses.
While the Facebook app is restricted at the moment to just sharing photos taken with the glasses, Twitter allows for that feature and some other notification options. The app will also allow you to see Twitter notifications and respond to messages.
"In addition to sharing photos, you can also keep up with the people you follow on Twitter through notifications — for mentions, DMs and Tweets from users for whom you've turned on notifications. As always, you can reply to, retweet or favorite these Tweets," Twitter engineering manager Shiv Ramamurthi said in a Twitter blog post today.
ABC News tried out the Facebook and Twitter apps and can report that they did work as promised. We snapped a photo on the glasses, tapped it once to share and then we were able to select the social network to share it with. However, installing the sharing-based apps are a bit clunky at the moment. You must install the apps from the Glass app on the phone and then enable sharing in the web-based Glass control panel.

Candice Glover wins American Idol Season 12

Candice Glover was crowned the Season 12 winner of "American Idol" on Thursday night, giving us all a lesson in hard work and perseverance and proving that talent really can carry the day. She is the first female "Idol" winner since Jordin Sparks in Season 6.

"I can't even …" she said after Ryan Seacrest had named her as the winner and Kree Harrison, her bestie rival, as runner-up. "Three years."

The lush-voiced 23-year-old soul singer from St. Helena Island, S.C., who'd toiled as a travel agent, waiting for her chance to step into the spotlight and show the world what she could do, had auditioned for "Idol" twice -- in Seasons 9 and 11 -- before making it to the live rounds this season. This year, she's said, she came back with a new confidence and a clear sense of who she is.

Are You The Thought Leader

Small companies have to work hard to get visibility, especially when the market is crowded with competitors all vying for the same business. In high tech they face the added dilemma that IT departments don’t want to buy from a small unknown vendor, and the vendor can’t become large and reputable unless it has major customers. So, how does a company become better known with limited resources? By becoming an industry thought leader.

A thought leader is a recognized leader in one’s field. What differentiates a thought leader from any other knowledgeable company, is the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.

How does one become a thought leader?
  
1. Cultivate the press. Don’t leave it soley to your PR agency. If you are the CEO or the VP of marketing of your company, you should have a list of 20 writers and editors who regularly report on your market. You should be calling them, meeting with them, and calling them some more. Journalists are very busy people, often working on ridiculous deadlines. So, when you call you need to give them something that they can use to make their life better – a lead, a story, some insight, a quote, customers to whom they can talk for quotes. Warning. Journalists have a sometimes well deserved reputation for being incredibly curt, arrogant, and annoying. You may find this true or not. In any case, you need to treat them with respect. You need them more than they need you.
2. Write. White papers, case studies. Prepare lists of useful resources. Show that you understand and care about the problems that your customers are trying to solve. Assemble a valuable knowledge base of materials that demonstrate not only your expertise but also your commitment to solving your customers’ problems. Write industry specific pieces that have useful information for potential customers rather than sales pitches for your products.
3. Spread the word. Get what you’ve written into the hands of anyone who might care. Submit articles to editors of newsletters, trade magazines. Post them on your website. Make them free and easily accessible. Put your name on them and give them to anyone who will listen.
4. Speak. Identify trade shows and conferences that customers and industry influencers are attending and get on panels or lead workshops. Find out about the local associations that host speaking events and submit yourself for giving a talk. Again, focus on providing useful information. No one wants to listen to you pitching your product. You are there to inform and educate, to provide a unique perspective.
5. Use your website. Your website should be a source of useful information for customers, potential customers, and influencers. It is surprising that so many companies still view the web as a place to park their corporate brochures versus a dynamic, highly interconnected exchange of knowledge. The web is a marketplace of ideas, not a kiosk. Your website increases in value the more people know about it and link to it. The more reference-able your website is, the more it will be referenced.
6. Unlock your white papers! Don’t make people register to learn more about you. You want as many people to know about you as possible. If you want to do lead generation, use direct response ads rather than holding the information on your website hostage. Be generous with your expertise. Or the market will favor someone else who is.
7. Make thought leadership a strategic imperative for your company. Ideas and insight do not require dominant market share or millions in capital expenditures. Your company does not need to be a leader in sales to be considered a thought leader (though of course it doesn’t hurt). In high tech especially, the rules of the game change so quickly that insight becomes currency. But becoming a thought leader does require work and commitment. It demands the often difficult task of looking at your company from the perspective of the world outside. Most companies fail miserably at this. Generating an ongoing effort towards thought leadership is the best way to ensure that it actually happens.

On Facebook, users can no longer hide from search results

With its graph search, Facebook removed the ability for users to opt out of appearing in search results on the site, as noted by Quartz and straight way challenging other search engines like Google, Bing etc. Because graph search relies on the content of profiles to fuel its results, the move will allow more widespread returns on searches but may violate the confidentiality of users who previously relied on that feature.

Before Facebook’s changes to its retreat policy and the implementation of graph search, users were able to keep their profiles—even their most basic information—out of the searches of non-friends. This scenery would make it impossible for non-friends to locate a Facebook profile, unless the hidden person reached out first

Such profiles would hinder the progress of graph search, which relies on profile content to gather information Facebook asserts that a “single-digit percentage” of profiles had previously opted out of being searchable. As Quartz points out, even one percent is now 10 million people, so the change does affect a large absolute swath of users.

Now, Facebook has pushed everyone into the attention. We’ve noted a couple of profiles, formerly non-searchable, now appear in search results. Most probably, once graph search is turned on for their friends, the information in their formerly hidden profiles will be tallied along with the rest.

A restaurant run by robots

A restaurant in China's northern Heilongjiang province has 20 robots working for it, as waiters, cooks and busboys. the mechanical staff at Robot Restaurant in Harbin can work continuously for five hours after charging for two hours and can also display more than 10 expressions on their faces. When a diner walks in, an usher robot extends their mechanic arm to the side and says 'Earth person hello. Welcome to the Robot Restaurant.' After diners have ordered, robots in the kitchen set to work cooking their meals. Once the dish is prepared, a robot waiter, which runs along tracks on the floor, carries it from kitchen to table, the Daily Mail reported. A singing robot entertains diners as they eat.

Robots deliver dishes to customers at a Robot Restaurant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. Opened in June 2012, the restaurant has gained fame in using a total of 20 robots. A robot that specialises in delivering food holds an empty plate after serving meals to customers at a Robot Restaurant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. A robot that specialises in cooking, prepares "jiaozi", or Chinese dumplings, at a Robot Restaurant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. A robot delivers French fries to customers at a Robot Restaurant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province.

From the Sources : http://in.news.yahoo.com/photos/a-restaurant-run-by-robots-slideshow/robot-delivers-french-fries-customers-robot-restaurant-harbin-photo-112245483.html