Shazam unveils music player for iPad, iPhone and i...

The startup behind the popular smartphone app, which enables users to identify music by scanning and matching short audio clips, today unveiled theShazam Player, an iTunes-like service for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch that takes advantage of Shazam's unique, patented technology. Not only does the Shazam Player let users play songs and build playlists, but it also provides discovery tools, such as scanning songs for streaming lyrics, social sharing, tracking concert dates, or viewing related YouTube videos.

It's the startup's first new app since Shazam launched on the iPhone in 2008, and an indication of the company's ambitions beyond being just a music-fingerprinting service. Shazam, which raised roughly $32 million in new capital this summer, has for the most part always been a middleman--a way to discover music that you'll inevitably purchase via a third party, whether iTunes or Amazon. But after facilitating roughly $100 million in music transactions last year (of which it takes a slight cut), Shazam has recognized the larger potential for the service in everything from music to television to advertising.

More than 165 million people have downloaded the Shazam app, and they identify about 5 million ...

Google, Facebook Ordered By Indian Court To Remove...

India's acting telecom minister, Kapil Sibal was the victim over Twitter & Facebook when he demanded a need of censorship over the internet in our country. Everyone mocked out at him for messing with their only freedom of expression over the web. 

In response, on 22nd Dec a local court in New Delhi has ordered at least 22 social media websites, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo, to delete "inflammatory" images of religious figures from their network. This statement from civil judge Mukesh Kumar explains: "Contents which are uploaded by some miscreants through these social media sites are highly unacceptable and are inflammatory and derogatory which cannot be accepted by any religion." 
This move to censor web content is practically impossible as even Kapil Sibal himself agreed on this while he also said," This is business in progress. We will evolve a consensus and, if the sites still don’t accept it, then we will have to do something about it [as] this kind of content should not be in the public arena." 
Earlier this month both Google and Facebook had given out public statements in response to this issue but they agreed upon doing ...

NBA Talks Over Lockout Resume

Talks aimed at ending the NBA lockout have resumed, two people with knowledge of the situation said Wednesday, with a quick settlement necessary to start the season by Christmas.

The discussions began quietly Tuesday and are expected to continue through the Thanksgiving holiday, the people told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the talks were supposed to remain confidential.

The talks between representatives of the owners and players are now centered on settling their lawsuits: The players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league in Minnesota and the league filed a pre-emptive suit in New York, seeking to prove the lockout was legal.

Neither side commented on the talks, first reported by Yahoo Sports, though the league said in a statement it "remains in favor of a negotiated resolution" to the lockout.

The news revived the hopes of saving the Christmas slate, when the league schedules some marquee matchups to kick off its national TV package. The NBA finals rematch between Dallas and Miami was to headline three games this season

The league had wanted to open a 72-game schedule on Dec. 15, pushing the start of the playoffs and finals ...

Book Clarifies How Precisely Social Media Can Help...

I recently finished reading “No Bullshit Social Media,” by Erik Deckers and Jason Falls. In full disclosure, Jason sent me a free copy of his new book on social media, but I would have bought it anyway. It is that good.

 

I read quite a few social media books, and I  have never found one I would consider to have been a waste of my time. All the authors come at it from different directions and bring different examples. This book stood out to me because:

A. I have studied Jason’s lessons enough in Exploring Social Media, that I know he’s a marketing and public relations expert who knows a lot about social media. So he and Erik write the book from the perspective of marketers using social media, not the other way around. That is an important distinction.

B. They use small business examples. While I would have have liked to see even more examples of small businesses using social media successfully, the authors do a better job than most in showing how the small business owner uses social media successfully. That makes it very tangible and practical.

C. They lay out clear ways social media can be used in business, not fuzzy ideas ...

Hype surrounding the next social media “killer app...

I wrote a while back how “content without curation is just noise” which was an observation originally made by Steve Rosenbaum in a Huffington Post article cited in that previous article of mine. The basic challenge revolves around how we are deluged daily by a torrent of digital content coming from both older technology like email, mobile SMS, and news sites and newer technology coming in the form of streamed updates from “social media” sites like Facebook and Twitter. Separating the noise from useful information and selecting the most relevant, insightful, and reliable among these is seen to be the next frontier that the next “killer app” will supposedly step up to.

What that killer app will look like and which one among the many start-ups and projects will get it is still the subject of speculation. Apparently the criteria that defines good curation remains nebulous at best…

It’s a challenge with no clear discernible answer, or at least one they’re ready to reveal yet, other than the obvious: make the technology smarter.

“Think of these pieces of information like individual pieces of a quilt,” says [Jonathan Glick, founder of Twitter-focused start-up Sulia], who once served as Head of Product Development and Technology ...

How old is Wolves second-round pick Tanguy Ngombo?

Timberwolves president David Kahn said he wanted to add veterans to the team, he just didn’t know it would be through the 2011 NBA Draft. When Minnesota surprisingly selected Qatar forward Targuy Ngombo with the No, 57 pick, they thought they were drafting a 21-year-old hidden prodigy. NBA.com draft profile lists his year of birth as 1989. Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com believes Ngombo is 26 years old, citing FIBA.com and Qatar League online records. According to the websites, Ngombo will actually turn 27 on July 18. Also, turns out his name is Tanguy, not Targuy. So what does that mean? Eric Freeman of Yahoo! Sports has a breakdown of the draft rules: “NBA rules dictate that European players become automatically eligible for the league at 22 years old, at which point they become free agents unless a team already holds their rights through the draft. Since Ngombo had never been selected and his real age of 26 appears to have been a matter of public record, the selection should have never been allowed to happen and may be voided after the fact.” The league could invalidate the Timberwolves’ draft choice, essentially voiding it and wiping away their pick all together. If the league deems ...