And as you can gather, we’re still not quite at that dream state, where everything is available, sharable, discussable, and yes, even mashable.

So where are we, then? Will utopian (tele)visions for Facebook and MySpace soon come to pass? Or are we far from perfection? Will we ever get there? Looking at these fifteen or so official Big Media-borne devices, there’s still a considerable distance left ’til we see heaven.

Mixed Signals

Facebook is in a thorny position when it comes to media, we think you’d agree. The company has managed to assemble a pretty solid set of homegrown social software, and has done much to pioneer the third-party network application boom. Yet it has no MySpace Music or MySpace TV of its own. No major media-heavy awesome to speak of.

Which is certain puzzling, given the fact that Web users have been yelling the where-we-want, when-we-want refrain for a long while now, whether it’s on Hulu, YouTube, or, indeed, on Facebook.

Here are several items Big Media world that can be found on Facebook today. You’ll notice most applications are just gadgets ancillary to the brands which deliver them:

FOX - Yes, let’s start off with FOX. MySpace, after all, is part of the Fox Interactive Media umbrella, so it sholudn’t be expected that the company or any affiliates would establish a strong presence on Facebook. Nonetheless, FOX does boast a “News Video” application through Buddy Media. It’s neither terrible nor worthy of any applause. It just…is.

NBC - There are only two items from the NBC universe which have grabbed small but reasonable attention on Facebook. Both are games: “What’s Your iCue?,” and “Gladiator Battle.” No video offerings from the company’s news divisions, and no titles from NBC’s weekly primetime lineup. Which is disappointing. Very.

ABC - This broadcaster offers widgets for most all of its popular shows. Names like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “LOST,” “Dancing With The Stars,” and “Ugly Betty” are all present. Yet none feature the full library of content associated with each production.

It’s quite well known that ABC has remained largely independent and solitary in the Web video world, serving much of its online audience at its main website. The company has claimed that to be its preferred method of delivery. But the “be everywhere” motto being carefully exemplified by other broadcasters may draw ABC to rethink its strategy. We hope so, anyway.

CBS - The most outstanding CBS option on Facebook at present are: an AOL Radio application that CBS has partnered with; a fairly basic “Survivor: Gabon” widget; and a service dubbed “Breaking News Headlines.” There is also an item from CBS Sports called “Sprint Fantasy Pick,” which highlights weekly choices for the NFL schedule.

Suffice it to say that CBS needs to get going with the premium media delivery if wants to transition from “dabbler” status to something with a vested interest in tapping the social media space to full(est) effect.

The WB - Though the WB and UPN television networks merged some ways back to form “The CW,” there has still been an effort to resurrect the WB’s back catalogue and introduce new Web-only shows to eek extra value from the brand. Interestingly enough, this fourth or fifth place network (after CBS, FOX, ABC, and NBC, in no particular order) has delivered what I find to be a fairly good experience with its Facebook application. Its competitors could take lesson.

Seriously, the only thing negative to say about The WB at this point is that there should be more content to choose from. The necessary groundwork has been laid, however.

MTV - Listing some 7,500 monthly users, the “MTV Music Videos” application, currently in beta, grants users access to some 16,000+ music videos.

While the browsing experience can be considered clunky, the wealth of material provided is substantial. The developers promise that improvements are on the way, too. Improvements = good news.

ESPN - Games and team picks are where ESPN devotes its attention on Facebook; no radio or video highlights to speak of. The most utilized item in the ESPN playbook is “No Limits Moto Jump,” from ESPN Arcade and Skyworks.

How unfortunate. ESPN is one of the most valuable names in all of media, and the best the company can come up with is a motocross gimmick. They can do better. A lot better.

Comedy Central - The only official item released by Comedy Central to the Facebook application directory is “Indecision 2008 Games.” Which might be a tad past its expiration date.

In fact, the names that emerge from the Stewart-Colbert world that are relatively popular have been produced by non-affiliates. “Watch Colbert,” and “Daily Show News” are the sole items that promise video content. You might say that’s unnatural.

PBS - Yep, PBS is on Facebook! Besides a “Teacher Search” application, it boasts a video preview and podcast service for its trademark “Nature” programming. We’d like it if PBS were to do with this application what the broadcaster has done with things like Frontline. Put it all up on the Web for all to see. Wouldn’t that rock if PBS had a enthusiastic followers on Facebook? On Facebook!? Heck yes.

Are there any Facebook applications with ties to Big Media that you don’t see here which you enjoy? Are there any apps that you haven’t seen that you’d really, really want to see? Share your picks in the comments!

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The platform, which has been undergoing beta testing for a year (BT acquired Ribbit four months ago), will be presented at Adobe MAX, together with a range of applications in areas such as social networking, marketing and business productivity. We’ve discussed the benefits of a web-based VoIP platform before; now developers will be further encouraged to build for the platform through Ribbit’s $100k “Killer App” contest that will award prizes for the most innovative Ribbit applications across five categories.

BT claims that this “has never been done before;” an important part of their solution is openness to everyone, even other carriers. Under the motto “Bring Your Own Network,” Ribbit’s platform enables other carriers to use the platform, design new apps, or generate revenue from the applications that currently exist for the platform. Whether or not other carriers be willing to take this opportunity remains to be seen.

Check out Ribbit’s presentation of the platform below:

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We should be so lucky. These supposedly brutal layoffs at Time and other titles amount to only 6% of headcount at the bloated Time Warner magazine group. Other media groups such as the New York Times and Conde Nast-a hiring freeze, how callous!-are being even more squeamish. From conglomerates to internet ventures, executives should be planning now on a decline of up to 40% in advertising spending during this cycle. Instead they're sleepwalking into economic extinction-even those lean online ventures which were supposed to take up the mantle and preserve New York's position as a media capital.

Isn't a 40% decline overly pessimistic? (That scenario-which I first floated last month-is gloomy even by my standards. And Gawker Media's trademark bearishness in 2006 or earlier this year has sometimes been dismissed as gamesmanship: an attempt to unsettle actual and potential competitors. My motives are indeed not entirely pure.) Actually, such a collapse in advertising spending-affecting internet media as much as television and print-is a contingency internet businesses should plan for. Here's the argument.

Advertising forecasts don't anticipate a deep recession. Mary Meeker showed recently with a regression analysis how sensitive advertising revenue was to GDP trends: for every 1% decline in output growth, the rate of advertising growth falls by 3%. But the Morgan Stanley analyst and her counterparts are still basing their models on redundant forecasts for the world economy as a whole. Economists are notoriously bad at predicting the depth of a recession. Meeker's presentation to the Web 2.0 conference cited the IMF's 2009 forecast that the US economy would be basically flat. Again, we should be so lucky; let's look at the precedents.

Other banking crises point to steeper declines. A more reasonable assumption is that US output will follow the path of other countries that have suffered a credit crunch in the last two decades. A relatively mild scenario is that of Japan, where GDP grew at an average rate of only 1% a year during the Asian economy's "lost decade" of the 1990s; a central projection might be based on Sweden's banking crisis in 1990-1993 during which output fell by 6% even though Stockholm acted relatively promptly to recapitalize troubled banks much as western governments are doing right now; and let's take as the nightmarish extreme the experience of Indonesia, where the economy collapsed by 13% in 1998. Plug these scenarios into Mary Meeker's model: US advertising spending would decline by between 9% and 43%; if the US experienced a three-year downturn like Sweden's, the advertising market would decline by a projected 27%. But that won't hold across the board, will it?

Internet advertising is by no means immune. Advocates of the internet claim that the sector is both more mature than it was during the last downturn; and it's more "measurable" than other media. They hope to avoid a repeat of the 27% decline in 2000-2002. Good luck with that. The sector's maturity also means that its underlying growth is more sluggish than it was in the late 1990s. In 2001, internet advertising swung to a 13% decline from 78% growth the previous year; this time the sector starts from a growth rate of 27%; I would hate to see what a swing as violent as the dotcom burst would look like. As for the measurability of internet media: sure, marketers and their agencies can track engagement and clicks in great detail online; but it's still only television advertising that can demonstrate a correlation between spending and a boost to a marketer's sales.

So, what to do? Well, first of all, publishers should be planning for the worst-now. Check out the title of this chart from Sequoia Capital-presented to scare the Valley venture capital partnership's portfolio companies into drastic cuts. The motto-survival of the quickest-is self-evident to lossmaking venture-backed companies. It applies even to companies such as Gawker Media which are-for the moment at least-profitable. Fortunately, private companies can move more nimbly than established behemoths to boost revenues and reduce costs. There are six main levers.

1. Get out of categories such as politics to which advertisers are averse. That's easier for us to say since we spun off Wonkette earlier this year. And outfits such as the Huffington Post and most big-city newspapers-defined by their political coverage-will have difficulty redefining themselves. But media groups cannot afford in the current environment to fund their most noble missions; they should leave that to public-spirited non-profits such as Pro Publica.

2. Renegotiate vendor contracts. It's the one silver lining of recession: just as publishers compete more fiercely for advertising business, so our own vendors such as hosting companies and hardware providers come under growing pressure. This is how deflation spreads. One might as well take some advantage of it.

3. Consolidate titles. Time-pressed media buyers are drawn to scale. Most websites are still way too small to register with the audience-tracking services that agencies rely upon. Of 18 titles launched at Gawker Media, we've already spun off or shuttered six. Even now, 91% of advertising revenues come from the top six remaining titles. Every media group has a similarly lopsided distribution. It's time to choose which properties make it aboard the lifeboat. The era of the sprawling network-established franchises mixed in with experimental sites-is over.

4. Offshore more. For publishers with most of their operations in the US, the decline of emerging market currencies is a potential boon. The dollar cost of development work in Hungary, for instance, has fallen by more than 30% since mid-July. It might seem perverse to push work offshore when costs in the US are falling; in fact, companies should move operations where costs are falling even faster.

5. Variable compensation. Sequoia recommended that their portfolio companies increase variable compensation such as sales commission in exchange for a reduction in base salary and bonus guarantees. We believe media companies should go further than this: reducing base pay for all highly-paid executives in exchange for a share in a profit-share pool. That way staff share more directly in the benefit if revenues turn out better than feared-in proportion to the amount they've sacrificed. And the company lays off some of the risk of volatile revenues. One other possibility along the same lines that we're exploring: four-day weeks for writers willing to trade some income for more free time.

6. More value for marketers. Internet publishers have forced marketers into a straightjacket of standard ad units too small for brands to breathe. If the sector is to capture a larger share of brand advertising from magazines and television, the creative needs to have more impact. We've introduced three new units: the marquee-1,000 pixels by 250-at the top of each page; the panorama in the flow of the posts at 800x250; and a sponsored post format for marketers with a message best communicated by text.

This is all pretty abstract so let me share a couple of charts. They're based on real numbers-and our projections for next year-though we've removed the numbers on the y-axis to maintain at least the appearance of commercial discretion. The first chart shows where Gawker Media would be if the company only reacted in the middle of next year after the decline in advertising hits; the second shows our current plan assuming internet display advertising declines by 20% in each of the next two years and we can no longer out-perform the market. It looks pretty bleak: but at least lean internet businesses can make it through! And if I'm being unduly gloomy? Well, then-see third chart-there will be plenty of cash to invest-or acquire the assets of companies that can't withstand even the mildest of downturns.

Too late

30% decline a year in ad market-with cost cuts

The optimistic scenario: quick bounce back

Background
--A blog mogul turns bearish on blogs [New York Times, 2006]
--Gawker Media ditching three sites [Alley Insider, April 2008]
--How low will online ads go? [All Things D]

Nick Denton is the CEO of Gawker Media. This post is reprinted with his permission from his blog.

We just launched our “hiogi for Skype” solution. Now you can also ask any question by directly chatting with the hiogi community via the Skype account “hiogimessenger”. hiogi for Skype not only works on the Mac or PC but also on many mobile handsets, if you download the beta version of skype mobile.

Please follow these steps in order to start using hiogi for Skype:

1. Register for free and become a real hiogi
2. Log in on www.hiogi.com
3. Save your personal skype account on this page or in your settings: www.hiogi.com/skype
4. Wait until the hiogimessenger contacts you and add hiogi to your contact list.
5. Send your indivual activation code via skype to hiogi (provided on www.hiogi.com/skype)
6. Start asking question by writing ASK in front of your skype questions.
7. Get a list of all Skype functions by typing HELP into your hiogi skype chat window.

Source: hiogi blog

hiogi - German version

Wir sind hiogi – die weltweit einzigartige mobile Wissens-Community. Wir sind smart und helfen gerne anderen, die unterwegs sind, keine Zeit haben oder sich nicht mit google, etc. auskennen. “Heute helf ich dir, morgen hilfst du mir…” Nach diesem Motto sind wir bemüht, immer die richtige Antwort auf jede Adhoc-Frage zu finden. Egal ob Sportergebnisse, Urlaubstipps, Restaurants, Flugzeiten, Bahnverbindungen, Restaurantempfehlungen, Weltrekorde, Historisches oder Promi-News… Du erhältst von uns 160 Zeichen komprimiertes Wissen, Erfahrungen, Insider-Tipps und Profi-Recherchen. Sende deine Frage einfach per SMS an die 44044*. Die Ergänzungen, Bewertungen, Kommentare, Quellen und Links runden im Web das knackige hiogi-Wissen ab.

When something goes wrong on my network I go to the log files. Sometimes these files can be HUGE and take forever to open. The information is usually at the end of the file (as long as the incident happened recently) so it would help if I could just grab the last hundred or so lines from the file on the fly.

There is a command line command called Tail that can be used for some instances but this is sans GUI. It also cannot auto update as new data flows into the file or open multiple files at the same time. Dum Dum Dum…

That is where BareTail comes in. This free little application does everything I just mentioned in a non-installable app! That’s right boys and girls this is a perfect candidate for your memory stick.

Let’s check it out in all its simple glory…

Now I normally use BareTail on my mail log but I could not show you those screenshots without blurring every other word/IP so here is a shot from my firewall’s Syslog output. I have it looking for a particular string that it highlights and the file is updating every 250ms (and highlighting new entries as they match my filters).

So on a dual monitor setup you can quickly see the highlighted lines out of the corner of your eye and back up to see the problem.

As you can see above from the options screen, you have few options in the free version but it is still powerful nonetheless.

The only other option screen is the highlighting screen shown below:

You can have as many highlighting lines as you want as long as your brain can keep up with them as the data flows by.

BareTail is free for personal use and they have a Pro version with a few nifty features as well including more intense filter and search options. It also gives you the ability to save searches and filters to be used over and over again. But the free version is more than enough for me! You know my motto - free is for me!

Do you have a need for a tool like this other that what I use it for? Do you use something similar? Let us know in the comments readers….inquiring minds NEED to know!

(By) Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at the NEW AskTheAdmin.com today. Show your support and check us out today! Where all your technology questions are answered for free!

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Company Name

Inner8

20-Word Description:

Inner8 is a new online investing community that is helping independent investors generate relevant results using powerful new technology.

CEO’s Pitch

Inner8 is led by a senior team of investing and technology experts, who helped to launch the online brokerage revolution at E*TRADE. Inner8 believes that independent investors can actually do quite well, even in today’s shifting markets – with a little help from their friends.

Inner8 is first reaching out to sophisticated online investors who will form the basis for our investing community. Early next year, we will have more consumer-oriented products based on our experience. Our proprietary software was originally designed to be used by professional money managers.  We are providing these powerful diagnostic capabilities in a consumer friendly interface.

Mashable’s Take

The words confidence and investing haven’t happily walked hand-in-hand for some time now, in light of turmoil in the banks, the Dow, the S&P ranks, and the global economy at large. So Inner8’s literal bold-lettered request for prospective users to “invest with confidence” may not get people feeling thoroughly bullish about their prospects in today’s markets. Not after seeing little else but “Crisis, Crisis!” in their respective news feeds for the past several months, anyway. But that shouldn’t discourage you from taking a trip through Inner8. Why?

Well, if you’ve been watching the investment world for any substantial length of time in the past 5 years or so, you’ll know that investment services were routinely delivering ways for you to sidestep traditional brokers in order to walk onto the trading floor of your choice entirely of your own volition. Metaphorically speaking, of course. But many of them had more or less sequestered you to your own devices. Or at least without giving you an easy way to establish connections with traders who also happened to travel the independent road.

That’s what Inner8 seeks to address. Inner8’s objective is to give you the tools necessary to track and analyze investments and do it in conjunction with community-sourced guidance. In short, it’s the strength in (reputable) numbers motto grouped with a “rising waters raise all boats” perspective. You’re autonomous, but not alone. As the company says, “we make it easy to create your own Inner8 circle - a select group of community members who have the expertise to help you make the most of your investment opportunities. And in turn, as you build your knowledge base and standing within the community, your good ideas contribute to other members’ investing success.”

Of course, it is important for anyone jumping/walking/tip-toeing aboard Inner8 to approach the ecosystem with an ample dose of realism, just as you would with most any investment service given the current nature of “The Beast.” But here I’ll finagle a glass-half-full perspective and say that you’ve seen with your own eyes what is possible with the long-standard professionals-checking-professionals way of doing business. Why not take a different approach to the task, and rely on a growing body of knowledge and advice that welcomes any contributions which may lead to higher returns? Why not indeed.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Scour ist aus Aftervote entstanden, das ich Ihnen vor längerer Zeit einmal vorgestellt hatte, durchsucht gleichzeitig die Indexe von Google, Yahoo und MSN, also den drei grossen allgemeinen Suchmaschinen, und bietet neben der Web- noch eine Bilder- und Videosuche. Was sind die Besonderheiten von Scour?

Read entire post here AgoraWissen

In his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln mentioned that government is “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,” but interestingly among all the feedback I have received, no one has pointed out that all of my writing on Government 2.0 has been about what the government itself is doing. What’s your role as a citizen?

Using the power of mass collaboration for public good
I had the opportunity to hear Anthony Williams, co-author of the best-selling book Wikinomics, speak at the National Defense University recently. He is very interested in using the power of mass collaboration for public good – including education, health care, science, government, democracy, international advocacy and national security – and this encompasses the spirit of Government 2.0 that I promote. In his public comments, he pointed out a number of areas where new social tools will enable citizens to increasingly participate in government.

When people think about applying social technology to government, they often think of using it internally to share information and aid decision-making. But one area Mr. Williams mentioned that I have also written about in my description of what “social government” might look like, is the notion of reducing the barriers to participation in government. This means everything from local leaders working with government during disasters, to small businesses more easily winning government contracts, to the U.S. Patent Office crowdsourcing their enormous backlog of technical patent applications through their “Peer to Patent” initiative.

Williams also had some interesting comments on “redrawing the division of labor in society” that I hadn’t previously given a lot of thought to. The idea is, if we can outsource toy-making to China and customer service to India, can we outsource aspects of health care to Sweden, or education to Japan? It might sound strange, but why couldn’t affordable specialist doctors in other countries look at our X-rays, and why can’t homeschooled American children learn from teachers abroad? And conversely – what might other countries outsource to the United States?

Participating on the Web
The authors of Wikinomics have created a participatory website about Government 2.0 where they blog about their ideas and relevant news stories, detail government “case studies” about social tools, and solicit ideas on various topics. These kinds of outsider efforts, also among them the terrific GovLoop social network that I belong to, are to be applauded. Steve Ressler, the founder of GovLoop, says that, “Citizen participation is where Government 2.0 gets really interesting – they can provide fresh perspectives that provide insight into the large problems that government agencies are attempting to solve.”

But frankly there are too many other people talking and not doing. One of my senior colleagues who has spent a lifetime in public service likes to come into my office and ask, “What have you done for your country today?” The question always gives me pause, and I hope it does for the reader as well.

At the Collaboration Project, a social community powered by the National Academy of Public Administration, they use the motto, “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what we can do together.” This is the right theme for moving forward with the next generation of government of, by, and for people like you. Rather than complain about Beltway Bandits, form a nation of Beltway Pandits.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government. You can reach Mark by emailing Markd [at] mashable.com.

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