Pod1 Blog

… is a site to showcase cool experiments for both JavaScript and web browsers.

I particularly like…

and…

But there are loads more here

Google has launched a new game on YouTube called ‘Chrome Fast Ball‘ to promote the integration of Adobe Flash Player into its Chrome browser.

While not the most engaging game in the world it is an interesting use of YouTube, see for yourself below…

The saga continues (see Google threatens to pull out of China) and the statement below from Google’s blog shows how reluctant it is to pull out of such a lucrative market, while at the same time trying to remain loyal to its own pledge of providing uncensored results.

The latest plan is to provide a landing page on Google.cn which then links to Google.com.hk allowing users to continue to perform uncensored searches.

“We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.”

“Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP license renewal application based on this approach.”

It remains to be seen how China will react to this as there is always the chance they will simply block the new landing page leaving users no choice but to use the censored version.

Full article on Google’s Blog

ITV Live is an exclusive live online service for football fans providing video replays, real-time stats and live chat during the football World Cup in South Africa.

Capitalising on the open platform access afforded by social media applications, ITV Live will seek to connect with the likes of Twitter and Facebook inviting as much interaction as possible.

In keeping with the sharing theme, the network has worked with producers and talent – such as ITV’s World Cup team led by presenter Adrian Chiles, who will refer to ITV Live comment and chat during match presentations – to develop content to support programmes.

Coverage starts at 1.30pm on Friday 11th June so there’s no excuse to miss any of the action.

Let us know what you think of it and if there are better services out there?

With the World Cup now less than 2 weeks away it is no surprise that the volume of searches on associated terms has started to increase rapidly. To help visualize the search traffic around the event Hitwise has compiled the graph below which shows how the level of interest has been growing.

1. world cup 2010 (4.98% of all UK Internet searches containing the phrase ‘world cup’)
2. world cup (3.70%)
3. world cup 2010 dates (3.28%)
4. england world cup fixtures (1.77%)
5. world cup fixtures (1.64%)
6. fifa world cup 2010 (1.36%)
7. world cup groups (1.10%)
8. world cup 2010 wall chart (1.10%)
9. fifa world cup (0.74%)
10. world cup fantasy football (0.73%)

Read the full article on the Hitwise Blog

A simple little tool to check your Facebook privacy settings. Just click on the link then drag and drop in your bookmarks, next time you are on Facebook click on the bookmark and it will check your privacy settings. Simple.

Privacy Scanner

They have taken their time but Twitter are in the process of launching a dedicated business centre with a range of new features. This is currently being rolled out by invitation only but it shouldn’t be too long before these are widely available to all business users.

Information is still a little scarce at the moment but we will update this post when we have more news, until then the screen shots below give a preview of some of the new features.

I have been looking into all the recent changes on Facebook in particular the Open Graph API, which was designed to simplify the way developers work with the Facebook platform.

It is in fact an evolution of Facebook Connect, a single sign-on application that competed with services such as OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial. The more basic Facebook Connect is now being phased out in favour of Open Graph which will give website owners the option of easy personalisation.

The possibilities that this opens up are explained very clearly in this article by Mitchell Harper on Mashable below.

Read the full article here.

Something fun for a Friday afternoon…

Twitter has signed up a number of well known brands, including Starbucks, Sony Pictures, Red Bull, TV channel Bravo, Virgin America and Best Buy to trial the launch their new paid advertising service.

Twitter users will now see sponsored tweets at the top of relevant Twitter search pages. The ads will be a tweet from the brand clearly labeled “Promoted” to distinguish the paid-for tweets from the normal ones (as above).

This is just phase 1 of the roll out and at some point adverts will also begin appearing on the site’s home page tailored to the user’s interests, determined by the messages they publish and receive.

Eventually the ads will also appear in tweets that are accessed through other applications as this currently makes up anything between 60% and 80% of traffic.

It is still early days but comes as no surprise that Twitter has at last launched its revenue model.