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I believe you have already heard of Chatroulette , the new video chat platform that has attracted the attention of millions. In February there were 30 million unique visitors to the site. That's 1 million new users each day. The site made quite a buzz on the news media, blogs , and Twitter . Comscore reports 1 million U.S. visitors in February with a predominance of 18- to 24-year-old males. The platform looks premature (it might be part of its charm) as it comes with one feature only: the next button. (By clicking it you are skipping from one user to another.) The next feature is vital as it gives the user a sense of control. I would even consider naming the hype around its users the "Next" Generation. Sponsor Guest author Dr. Taly Weiss is a marketing trends researcher with a PhD in Social Psychology, a digital research expert, and the founder of TrendsSpotting trends agency. Her digital trends insights are presented at The TrendsSpotting Blog and she follows consumer trends at TrendOriginal.com. Taly's academic work contributes to the field of Behavioral Economics. TrendsSpotting offers customized and syndicated research reports, published at top market research databases. She can be contacted at talyweiss@trendsspotting.com . What a powerful (yet dangerous) tool that can be for people who seek to experience the control they lack in their personal life. The Next Effect is well embedded in the whole Chatroulette random experiment. What social needs does such a platform serves? Psychologically speaking, these random experiences can teach us on few important needs about social interactions. the crave for peeking (online) face to face control (and at the same time - lack of control) The no commitment effect. Combine the four together and you understand the power and the addiction potential of Chatroulette. We are all well familiar with the above needs: Peeking into strangers' lives is what brought popularity to the reality TV shows. We humans receive instant gratification from the arousing feeling that comes when we are allowed inside private personal places. Face to face interactions are certainly not new experiences on the Web. But they are getting to an extreme when you personally encounter strangers in their natural surroundings. As to control , Chatroulette can well imitate an act of meeting strangers on the street. You can choose between two acts: you can play active or passive. They are both highly addictive. You can actively approach, and they might not get interested in you. You keep on trying. At the same time, you can choose to be the one who turns down interactions. That can be satisfying don't you think? The no commitment part is achieved by users' anonymity. Chatroulette doesn't require any identification or user subscription. You don't have to work hard and fake your identity. Finally, there is something new in these sets of random acquaintances that leaves you unprepared. This surprise element can never be achieved offline. While Twitter and Facebook let you follow strangers you choose to, Chatroulette adds more dimensions to these interactions. It is no longer about your friend's whereabouts or images, nor about reporting what's going on now. It's live and you get a chance to play with an imaginary sense of control. While in real life you hardly talk to strangers, here you get it as a social norm. The future of random interactions: I can think of several ways of making these interactions more intriguing - mobile interactions on the move (following people wherever they go) would definitely be hot, as well as the option to filter the people you meet by their location, age or gender. But forget that for now. If Chatroulette were to succeeded in controlling immoral and pornographic activity, what a great human experiment it would open! Discuss
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What Social Needs Does Chatroulette Fill?
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Marten Mickos move to become CEO of Eucalyptus Systems puts more shine on open-source cloud efforts. In particular, it drives discussion around open-source efforts such as Reservoir , Nimbus and Open Nebula . But most of all, the attention of the market is now on Eucalyptus, the cloud fabric technology created in the labs at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It has since been adopted to create what we now know as private clouds. Sponsor Mickos has a storied past in the world of open-source. He played a lead role at MySQL, helping grow to a company that reached $65 million in sales before being sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion. Krishnan Subramananian makes a good point in his analysis of Mickos move. Mickos proved to the world how giving away its software could be a business model that works. Mickos steered MySQL into the enterprise. Its push into the enterprise made MySQL a threat to companies such as Oracle and IBM, which considered it a threat to their long-term hegemony. For its part, Eucalyptus Systems has done very well with a simple free, plus services model. Eucalyptus gives away its software and then charges to integrate proprietary systems. The company garners additional revenue through support. Last September, Eucalyptus began offering an enterprise service in September, 2009 by offering integration with VMware and other hypervisors typically found in a data center, such as Xen and KVM. Eucalyptus supports a number of third-party tools including RightScale. They partnered with Canonical to support Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. What will Mickos do with Eucalyptus? He will likely help steer the company deeper into the enterprise. And perhaps even finding a buyer for Eucalyptus, much like he did for MySQL. Discuss
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Marten Mickos Goes For Two In New Role As CEO At Eucalyptus
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We trust services like Last.fm or Pandora to learn our musical tastes and serve up custom radio stations, so why not the same for the numerous streams that bombard us daily? My6Sense , a recommendation engine for your social streams and news feeds, is releasing its functionality today in its " Attention API " at the DEMO conference. Sponsor The company released an iPhone app last summer, which uses the company's "digital intuition" to determine the particular stories and status updates that are most relevant to you according to what you've clicked on and spent time with in the past. The system learns from you, becoming more familiar with what you are interested in as time goes on. According to the press release, "the service is content/stream agnostic and can automatically rank information from all types of sources -- including social streams like Twitter, news streams, RSS, vertical content providers, open whiteboards and more. The solution is optimized for mobile platforms, where digital clutter is the most prominent, and can be successfully used on non-mobile sites and applications as well." With services like Pandora, you need to let the program know when you like or dislike something. The "Attention API", on the other hand, simply requires that the site making use of it report back user activity in order to learn the user's habits and preferences. While this sounds great, and we can see it filtering out some of the noise, we have the same concerns about it as we do about Google customizing our search - that we will end up in an echo chamber of like-minded thought. As our own Frederic Lardinois pointed out when reviewing the My6Sense iPhone app, you may want to step outside the recommendations once in a while for a breath of fresh air. If you are a real news junkie, you will probably still sometimes want to switch to the regular timeline mode that organizes items chronologically. After all, the items you don't usually think you would be interested in can sometimes really grab your attention (which is, to be honest, a problem that all recommendation systems have to grapple with). On the company's API page , it mentions that the API will provide "No fear of bombardment" as "Developers and publishers can broadcast any amount of information and content to a widespread audience, which reaching individual consumers with messages that are uniquely relevant to them." We would hope that, in reality, any service using the API would notify its users that it was doing so and even offer the ability to step outside of the service's recommendations. Discuss
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My6Sense Releases API: 'Digital Intuition' for the Real-Time Web
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This week we added one of the most exciting events of the year to the calendar: the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 . Sure, we're a little biased, but we think the conference is the place this year to learn about mobile development trends. We hope to see you in Mountain View on May 7. How do you like your events calendar? As a world map ? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 11 March 2010: Los Angeles, California Los Angeles VC and Angel Event At FundingPost 's next event, a panel of investors who will focus on early-stage venture investing. We will be discussing trends in early-stage investing, sectors that these Angels and VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an investment and the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention. Entrepreneur summaries will be given to the investor speakers and attendees - all of the investors will get your company description and contact info! Additionally, there will be an optional pitching workshop lunch where we will completely deconstruct your elevator pitch, and work with you on formulating a clean and concise elevator pitch giving the important information that investors need to hear to make an educated decision on your company! Then you get to give your new elevator pitch in person to the panel of investors during the event! Click here for more information . 11 March 2010 Positioning Roundtable During this weekly 60-minute online session, entrepreneurs are invited to pitch Sramana Mitra - entrepreneur, strategy consultant, Forbes columnist and author of Entrepreneur Journeys - their business ideas in a three-minute presentation. She will review the material in real time and provide feedback on each pitch, as well as address specific positioning questions from the entrepreneur. Afterwards, she will take questions about positioning from other participants. The session is open to 1,000 people to attend, but only the first five who sign up to pitch Sramana will have the opportunity to discuss their businesses. 12 – 16 March 2010: Austin, Texas SXSW Interactive An incubator of cutting-edge technologies, the SXSW Interactive Festival offers five days of captivating keynote presentations, panel sessions, book readings, Salons and Core Conversations that provide hands-on training as well as big-picture analysis. In addition to the business opportunities at the Trade Show and Exhibition and the hands-on gaming fun at the ScreenBurn Arcade, SXSW Interactive provides an array of exciting evening events including the SXSW Web Awards Ceremony. More to the point, coming to SXSW Interactive is a great way to recharge your creativity. The variety of programming offered at SXSW Interactive means that the event focuses as much on creativity as it does on technology. This focus is augmented by SXSW Film, which runs concurrently with SXSW Interactive and SXSW Music. Moreover, a full slate of parties and receptions during the evening hours help to accelerate the social aspect of the event. For more information, visit sxsw.com , or for a handy survival guide click here . 15 – 16 March 2010: London, England 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams: Social Networking World Forum Enterprise social media Social TV World Forum Mobile Social Networking Forum The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more. Full workshop program within exhibition area Evening networking reception Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates Free pass for exhibition only 22 – 26 March 2010: New York City Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York . Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include: Digital Asset Optimization Deep Dive Into Analytics Augmented Reality: It's a Brave New World Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons Advanced B2B Search Marketing Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues 23 March 2010: San Francisco, California S.F. Beta 4.0 After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info. 26 March 2010: San Francisco, California Freemium Summit The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners. Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures. March 29, 2010: Portland, Oregon Social Fresh Portland The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia ConnectNow ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au . 13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas PubCon South PubCon , the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here . 16 April 2010: Mountain View, California Under the Radar: Cloud Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com . 16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan FutureMidwest FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow. Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here . April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri Social Fresh St. Louis The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California DrupalCon DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration . 7 May 2010: Mountain View, California ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference. An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences . We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks. Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Click here to register now , or to become a sponsor , or to help shape the conference . 11 May 2010: San Francisco, California FinovateSpring FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day. Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available. May 17 2010: San Francisco, California SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off . 15 – 16 June 2010: New York City Corporate Social Media Summit The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring: Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson), Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here . 29 – 30 June 2010: London Cloud Computing World Forum The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include: Co-located with CloudCamp London Co-located with Green IT conference Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre Free-to-attend evening awards presentation Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services Evening networking party for all attendees 5 October 2010: New York City FinovateFall FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies. FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available. Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss
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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 6 March 2010
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Last year, Foursquare was called the break-out mobile app of the conference by more than one tech journalist. This year, a new contender has appeared - Austin's native Gowalla . And Brightkite is still hanging on to the LBS community, if only by a thread of loyal users - but they still offer more features than some of their better-known competitors. Which do you use now? And when your attention is at a premium during one of the year's most popular geek conferences, which app or apps will you use to collect badges, connect with friends, and find out where the party really is? Sponsor Gowalla's main weakness might be that they haven't yet developed an Android or Blackberry application. WordPress Bible author Aaron Brazell noted that while many see the iPhone as the "Jesus phone," that doesn't change the fact that "any company who has a business model built around... iPhone is nucking futs." While many of us use the mobile version of the site and patiently wait for a native app for non-iPhone devices, Foursquare's been our go-to check-in service for quite some time. And their response to us on Twitter suggests they may see themselves as a comfortable incumbent at this point. Both of the services we've mentioned also have special, built-in incentives for users at SXSW. Gowalla in particular has announced an interesting promotion. For their flagship "Tiki Room" event, the app will "be scattering hundreds of Tiki Room Digital VIP Passes around downtown Austin. The only way to get yours is to check in with Gowalla at other Austin venues and SXSW events." Last year, Foursquare also had special badges for SXSW , such as "Panel Nerd", "Karaoke RV" and "Porky" (for BBQ lovers, in particular). They even made a custom badge for attendees of Digg's party and Diggnation live show. And while Brightkite may not have the game mechanics and rewards of other apps, it does give us the ability to upload photos in addition to text when checking into various locations - a tool we've found very handy when screening new venues for ambience. So, which app or apps will you be using during SXSW? Vote in the poll, and let us know the "why" of your choice in the comments. What Mobile Apps Will You Use for SXSW? poll Discuss
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POLL: What Location-Based Mobile App(s) Will You Use During SXSW?
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