Austin Hill designed and produced the copy behind an awesome ad campaign for a company he started some time ago called Zero Knowledge.
Given today’s IIW, this seemed an appropriate image to reflect the fact that the tide of identity is finally changing in our favor.
I reported on this before, but Wincent today has launched Synergy 3.1, completing the addition of Audioscrobbler support. And, looks like he’s pulled a few ideas out of the beta cycle to put into 3.2. Nice.
Somehow it’s only come to my attention that OmniWeb is on sale this month for a mere $10, $20 off the regular price.
I know you’ve got a lot of free choices for Mac browsers, but the Omni folks are good people, make excellent products and, hey, OmniWeb is worth it.
So, before time expires, you really should consider taking advantage of this deal. Nothing’s in it for me, it’s just a really good deal for a really good piece of software!
I’ve been watching the Civil Netizen guys for awhile, since they’re one of the few apps besides Flock built on top of Firefox that I’ve found in the wild. Well, they’re getting close to one-point-oh, and the latest designs, by veteran buddy-o-mine Wolfgang Bartelme, are looking hot.
The popular-cum-controversial professional networking site formerly-known as OpenBC recently relaunched with a new name and design with wide support for hCard.
Tara first spoke with Daniela about implementing microformats ages ago and in follow up emails and blog posts, we encouraged and worked out various strategies (pro bono, mind you) around their microformats implementation. They’ve started basic with support for hCard and I hope that over time, they’ll add support for XFN, rel-tag, hCalendar and hResume.
Various extensions and web services can now detect private contacts in your XING account and add them to your address book or perform additional functions.
This work follows LinkedIn eventually adding support for hCard and hResume — work that, just maybe, we had something to do with as well. 😉
Hopefully XING’s support of microformats will make Sebastian happy for now, though it seems like he’s still a bit skeptical (though Google Translate didn’t help me much with his post).
Ben Brophy‘s databaseless personal link aggregator, Linkwalla, has recently been upgraded to v0.9.7. Aside from Flickr and Ma.gnolia integration, the output is now marked up in the xFolk microformat.
In a very promising step, it looks like that venerable CMF Drupal is beginning to take on the process of becoming microformatted with the creation of the Microformats in Drupal group.
The original use of microformats came in the Upcoming.org module (I believe) but now it seems clear that there are many more places throughout Drupal that could benefit from microformats, including on the content creation side.
With word that OpenID support will be added to Drupal Core in version 6 (a module is already available for 4.7), if we see the addition of hcard for profiles and XFN for representing social relationships in Drupal, we may finally be moving towards a more decentralized, open-source network of socially adept web properties.
Now here’s something clearly to be thankful for.
Sundance award-winning documentary The Corporation has been released for free on BitTorrent.
TorrentFreak has the details:
The new torrent download includes a high-quality rip of the master DVD and a 40 minute interview with Joel Bakan, the author of the book and writer of the film. Mark Achbar actually dedicated a computer in his garage to do nothing but seed.
Although the torrent download is free, the filmmakers encourage people to donate a small fee if they like what they see. We asked Mark Achbar how the first round of donations went. He said, “since my initial torrent launch of The Corporation at the end of August, there have been $635.00 in contributions. They ranged from $2 to three very generous gifts of $100 each. All are very much appreciated.”
The makers of “The Corporation just launched a Campaign for Corporate Harm Reduction (C4CHR) in collaboration with Hellocoolworld.com. The purpose of this campaign is to collect stories about the impact of the film, asking people what they did, or something they’ve heard happened as a result of the film.
“We want to create a feedback loop on the “what you can do” front, and perhaps turn it into a book. The torrent is a great way to stay in touch with people about our current activities Achbar” Achbar explained.
He added, “my only regret is that I didn’t put up my own torrent sooner.”
Download the official torrent (DivX or iPod formats available) and start seeding!
Bonus: ChomskyTorrents has a bunch of other awesome mind-freeing stuff to check out! Definitely fodder for CitiCinema.
Had a meeting with our advisor Don Thorson today (who’s currently at Jajah) and found it interesting to see that Google is strongly moving to make good on the deal they inked with eBay in August into the voice communications area.
First, they started talking about giving away ad-supported cell phones, then they added Skype to the Google Pack and now they’ve gone and made the most obvious play by adding click-to-call dialing to Google Local, executing on part of the original agreement.
With Skype adding SMS capabilities it’s curious to watch Google and Skype fight a pitched battle into telephony systems while the rest seem to be waiting and watching.
I mean, doesn’t this have an obvious end point?
I mean, take eBay listings, take Google Base, take Adwords as it spins out into radio and print, take Skype and take free click-to-calls where Google aka Skype foots the bill… add free cell phones… free wifi. And now give Google the tools to monetize the whole lot of the transactions flowing over its servers, airwaves and cell towers… and the ability to know who you are, what you’re up to, what you like, and how much you’re worth to advertisers.
If I were a farming man, I’d be a tad concerned about these Google silos cropping up along the horizon. But that’s just me.
With the latest beta of Skype for Mac, they’ve added some pretty slick SMS integration.
Om Malik adds:
In addition, the company announced a deal with FON and SMC. SMC will sell a Skype enabled WiFi for for 139 Euros, and buyers will get a La Fonera router from FON and 500 SkypeOut minutes.
Factory Joe 