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Patents.com lets you search through ideas (good and bad)

Josh Lowensohn — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:44:00 GMT

Got the next big idea floating around in your head but want to see if someone else has already come up with it? Digging through the mountain of patents on file at the U.S. Patent and Trademark office's Web site can be a bit daunting. To help in that search is Patents.com which has an index of over 450 million patents in 15 different languages. All of this is combined with an online marketplace where these patents can be bought and sold.

Like Google's patent search offering, Patents.com offers some great exploration, which is where I found the most value. The front page shows off some of the most recently approved and submitted patents, but the star of the show is the search tool which goes from basic to "expert" mode with just one click. The expert mode gives you a whole new bag of search tricks like word proximity, a cheat sheet of commonly used patent jargon, as well as a "fuzzy" search which will look for alternate, or misspelled words in patent titles or the actual copy.

One of its key improvements over the standard U.S. Patent and Trademark office's Web site is the image viewer which I found far easier to use. It's essentially a PDF viewer, but it's stuck right on the page instead of opening in a new window. Also, unlike the U.S. Patent office site, it does not require reloading the page each time you want to see another image. Users of Google's patent search will feel right at home.

As for the actual sale of ideas, if you're a patent owner you can claim patents on the site and once verified you can sell them. Patents.com includes a list price set by the patent holder, and anyone who is interested can be contacted through Patents.com. This is definitely a useful service for people who know what they're doing. Like anything that involves legality and potentially large sums of money it's probably best to do some research before buying a patent on a site like this. The search, however, is quite a fun way to explore human ingenuity, and hopefully will lead to some fun patent discoveries from bloggers looking to unearth a major company's next big thing.

Did you know sugar could be patented? Apprently it's true for the owner of this patent which we found while browsing Patents.com.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Exploring Internet Explorer 8

Dan Farber — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:44:00 GMT

Robert Vamosi and I discuss the new features and browsing capabilities of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 and how it stacks up with other browsers. The new release brings IE up to par with Firefox, Safari, and Opera, and even pushes Microsoft a little ahead of the competition in a few areas.

Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 review

Internet Explorer 8 screen shots

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

Accounting on the go: Quickbooks for iPhone and Blackberry

Harrison Hoffman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Quickbooks, one of the leading accounting packages for small businesses, has just released web interfaces for Blackberry and iPhone. The iPhone version, seen to the left, sports a very slick UI and allows easy, at-a-glance access to all of your financial information, entered into Quickbooks Online.

At first glance, the web app provides a simplistic view of things. Features included are looking at who owes you, who you owe, vendors, employees, and bank accounts. Despite the initially simplistic look, as you drill down, you uncover a whole new level of detail.

Even though this seems to be a killer app for referring to your financial information, I have to point out some points where they have missed the mark. First off, a standalone app, available through the App Store would have been nice for the iPhone, but it's not completely necessary. The largest oversight here is not being able to edit or add data. In my opinion, this would be one of the primary usage scenarios for this app. That said, this is version one of this app and we may see this sort of functionality being added at some point down the line.

If you are already a Quickbooks Online user, these new web interfaces for Blackberry and iPhone are nice perks. I'm not sure that the introduction of these apps would be the deciding factor in jumping to Quickbooks Online, but it might help the decision.

You can try it out for yourself, before signing up by going to https://accounting.quickbooks.com/m and tapping "Demo."

Voice-activated text gets you to the Evite party

Leslie Katz — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:01:00 GMT

(Credit: Evite)

As of Wednesday, Evite's Send-to-Phone text alerts--which let users get event details on their mobile phone--include a voice-activated directions service. Yes, the addition of direction texts means partiers have lost one of their top excuses for being late. That drawback aside, this free new feature could be quite helpful.

It works from any cell phone and doesn't require any GPS, data plan, or registration. Guests can just click the "directions" link in the Evite event details text message to launch a call to the voice-activated service. They then say their start address or intersection and get turn-by-turn driving directions via SMS.

A partnership between Evite and mobile voice-entry technology company Dial Directions, the feature is available immediately nationwide. Watch the video below to see how it works.

Google gooses Apple's Safari with Gears beta

Stephen Shankland — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:08:00 GMT

As promised in May, Google has brought the open-source Gears technology to Apple's Safari, augmenting some browser abilities such as using Gears-tailored Web sites while offline.

The company announced a beta version of Gears for Safari (DMG file download link) on the Gears users mailing list Monday.

"We would love for you to install it and test it and file bug reports so we can polish it and find all the corner cases," said Google's Jeremy Moskovich.

Gears extends a browser so, for example, some Google Docs can be edited or viewed while the user isn't connected to a network. It also can speed up use of the WordPress blogging software and some operations at MySpace, and Google is expanding its scope to geolocation services and other areas, too.

The software requires Safari 3.1.1 on Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.3, he said.

Gears already works on Firefox and Internet Explorer; Opera is working on a version for both its desktop and mobile browsers.

(Via Google Operating System.)

Mozilla Ubiquity, Microsoft IE8, and the fracturing of Web pages

Rafe Needleman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:39:00 GMT

Mozilla on Tuesday released a public prototype of Ubiquity, a curious command-based interface to locating information on the Web and creating compilations of information from various sources. See: Mozilla offers do-it-yourself mashups for all.

At the moment, it's most capable as a command-line browser. You press the hot key, ctrl-space, and you can just start typing lookup commands, like "imdb Blade Runner." Or, if text is already selected in the browser, your command will act on them. Mouse over a restaurant page in Yahoo Mail, press the hotkey, and type "yelp" for a review, for example.

Ubiquity can find and insert map images into e-mails.

But the most interesting application is Ubiquity's capability to extract items from Web pages and insert them in whatever you're creating, like an e-mail message or a blog post. At the moment I believe the only site you can extract data from is Google Maps, but clearly Mozilla's direction is to build a platform that takes bits of data from Web resources and pastes it together on the user's behalf.

Microsoft, too, is putting resources into a new feature that parcels out Web pages. In the upcoming Internet Explorer 8, the browser supports a feature Microsoft calls, "Web Slices," which is the platform's capability to take a portion of a Web page--like a stock chart on a financial page--and display it as a pop-up widget that's called from the bookmark bar in the browser.

Slices on Internet Explorer are part RSS feed, part widget.

Slices are built using a combination of protocols, including Microformats, RSS, and new HTML tags that IE uses to demark Slices.

Together, Ubiquity and Web Slices lead me to believe we're entering an era of fracturing Web content. Already we have seen content separated from presentation with RSS, and we've given developers access to online data for their mashups via Web APIs. But the growth of Microformat-coded Web pages will make it possible for users to more easily create their own mashups--personal profile pages that have just the pieces of Web content they want, or e-mail messages made up of live maps, automatically updating weather forecasts, up-to-the-minute travel information, and so on.

It means that developers will have to learn how to code pages for modularity. Conceptually that's not that big a deal, although if coding for Ubiquity and coding for Slices is different, it's going to be a technical mess. What I am waiting to see is how managers wrestle with the branding and revenue implications of letting their sites be mashed up and refactored into tiny pieces all over the Web, by anyone. I predict that the sites that give away the most data will reap the biggest benefits, but that will be a difficult leap of faith for many publishers.

Technorati acquires 'online magazine' Blogcritics

Caroline McCarthy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:53:00 GMT

Technorati Media, parent company of blog search site Technorati, has acquired Blogcritics.org. The newly purchased site is a user-fueled "online magazine" for bloggers that was already a member of the newish Technorati Media ad network.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Technorati has said that it plans to keep Blogcritics an intact, separate property.

With the acquisition, Technorati says it hopes to help Blogcritics contributors make some money, as well as scale the property to give it more reach. "As part of Technorati Media, we'll be able to grow the community and further improve our platform to attract new audiences," Blogcritics founder Eric Olsen said in a release. "Technorati's mission to help bloggers and people who read blogs is the ideal complement for us."

Acquiring content properties, however, likely won't change the fact that Technorati has been losing ground to Mountain View, Calif.-powered Google Blog Search and (to an extent) the search feature that Twitter built into its technology when it bought Summize. Technorati founder David Sifry has long since left the company, and he's now at the helm of a new start-up called Offbeat Guides.

Marvel forces Twitter takedown of fan account

Josh Lowensohn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:33:00 GMT

If you've been thinking about starting a Twitter account under the pretense of being someone else you might want to think twice if it has anything to do with someone else's intellectual property.

In the past few weeks users, who have been trying their best to emulate characters from AMC's television series Mad Men have apparently had their accounts wiped clear and de-authorized by the microblogging start-up at the request of AMC's lawyers.

That's not the only instance, though.

More troubling is the story of Rich Johnston, a columnist for ComicBookResources.com. Johnston had gotten his hands on an advanced copy of a script for an upcoming graphic novel from publisher Marvel where Twitter was being used by one of the characters. Seeing the username unclaimed Johnston registered it, and began posting messages, essentially creating his own storyline.

Shortly thereafter, his comic-inspired Twitter account was wiped clear. In a response as to why it was no longer there, Johnston said he received a note from a Twitter representative telling him "I'd rather resolve this issue without getting Marvel's legal department involved because we are a very small start-up and lack a legal department."

For his troubles Johnston was given a Twitter T-shirt.

Going forward, the possible lack of a legal team at Twitter may be a more subtle problem than some of the service's growing pains that have affected a larger contingent of users. Say you've created an account using a brand name or posing as a public figure. Without proper protection for users, not only as part of the terms of service but also with people at Twitter willing to lay down the law, you're out of luck if a company decides to draft a takedown notice.

It's also not the first time Twitter's terms of service have gone under the microscope. Back in May, Ariel Waldman, Pownce.com's community manager, had trouble getting Twitter to take action on ongoing harassment. Waldman had jumped through nearly all the hoops usually needed for a company to take action, however, Twitter failed to even issue a warning to the harassing user despite a deluge of message history Waldman had presented.

While Johnston's early crack at the Twitter username might have been ill-willed, you can't fault the guy for thinking ahead--unlike Marvel. In the case of the Mad Men takedown, the real loser is AMC. If anything, the fake accounts were a source of fan enthusiasm that marketers would dream of achieving with cash-infused viral campaigns.

Note: Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on the Marvel matter.

Feedflix visualizes your Netflix rental habits

Josh Lowensohn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:34:00 GMT

If you've ever wondered how much you're costing Netflix when you go on those month-long movie binges, you should give Feedflix a go. It takes any one of your personal Netflix RSS feeds and figures out how many movies you're watching per month and what the cost comes out to for each DVD. It also breaks down your biggest return days and how long you tend to keep titles.

Ultimately, most of this information is useless, as with some simple math a Netflix membership tends to end up costing less per-rental after just four DVDs based on the most popular plan. Where you get the value is by coming back a few months later since it keep tabs on your RSS feed over time. You'll then have a better analysis of your watching habits and know if you if you need to get out of the house more often, or if it's time to ditch Netflix altogether.

What makes the service truly interesting is its graphs of other Feedflix users. It will group together this information and anonymize it, giving you a bit of a peek into other people's habits. There are charts of the average rental period, popular plans, and most frequent return days. However, the neatest one of the bunch is the breakdown of other users' queue sizes. According to Feedflix, about a quarter or more of users have queues in the low hundreds which is truly impressive. I'd be very interested to see how this data stacks up with subscriber information from the source.

Feedflix is completely free of charge, however you will need to be a Netflix subscriber (or friends with one) to make use of its data crunching prowess.

FeedFlix does a pretty good job at helping you figure out your rental habits, you just have to set it up with your RSS feed and it will keep tracking you over time.

(Credit: FeedFlix)

The approval broker: Zapproved

Rafe Needleman — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:17:00 GMT

Zapproved is a fairly new and very straightforward Web app for collecting approvals. Say you have a brilliant idea at work but need your boss, and the head of marketing, and a salesperson to commit to it before it has a chance of success. You might be able get these people to verbally express enthusiasm, or respond to an e-mail proposal in the affirmative, but these approvals can be tenuous. Worse, the marketing guy may actually be withholding concrete approval, but (you know how these things are) not telling you.

Zapproved pins people down. You create a proposal on the Zapproved site, and it sends it to the people you indicate. Their options are Approve, Deny, or Comment. You--and everyone else--can see who's holding up the decision that you want to be made. It's that transparency that Zapproved CEO Monica Enand can help move decisions along, by shaming the laggards into making the call one way or the other.

You'd be a fool to say no.

The system also records approvals and collects attachments on approval e-mails; these work as audit trails of decision making and can serve as institutional memory for a company.

While the person setting up a decision process needs to use the Zapproved site to kick things off, the approvers don't need the site at all. They just get HTML e-mails with embedded Approve and Deny buttons in them. And that model is why this concept can work. Like Evite for event invitations, and TimeBridge for meeting time brokering, there's Web 2.0 goodness for everyone, even the people who respond without registering on the Web site. Of course, each approval request has a link to Zapproved on it, which spreads the word about the app. In contrast, many other (good) workflow services, like BaseCamp, require all participants to use the Web service and be registered on it.

Speaking of non-Web access to Zapproved, Enand also said her team is working on mobile versions, speech-to-text approvals, even a fax interface for when you want to get sign-off from a client who's not computer-literate. Enterprises that want their own installation of Zapproved may eventually be able to pay for a version they can install on their systems. For now, the entire system is hosted by Zapproved and is free to all.

I have a project here I've been trying to get off the ground for a year; it keeps getting attention and enthusiasm only to stall before it gets the resources it needs. I'm going to give Zapproved a shot and see if it helps. In a corporate setting, it can take only one person to kill a good project. I'm hoping this app will help me find that person.

See also: Zapproved: A Lightweight Decision Making App (ReadWriteWeb).