Yesterday Twitter casually announced on its blog the acquisition of Summize, a Virginia-based real-time search startup calling it "A Perfect Match." I could not agree with them more as they wasted little time and have launched a new search Twitter Search tool at search.twitter.com. If you are a heavy Twitter user then you have encountered problems using Twitter as they at times have had to turn off certain features leaving many to find other means, like Summize as shown in this recent tweet. Congrats to the Summize team as it does look to be an ideal exit and integration into Twitter.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

The release of new 3G iPhone and the launch of the Application Store secured the spotlight last week but there was another release which caught my attention. Apple launched MobileMe to replace the .Mac service which has been around for awhile. Though the .Mac migration may have had a few hiccups, the new MobileMe service offers users who pay just $99 per year an Apple run exchange for keeping contacts, calendar events and email synced to a PC or Mac computer and iPhone or Touch. The release positions Apple into a new space as a supplier of personal enterprise computing solutions. Apple takes on "free" email providers by locking up new me.com users to an account on a yearly subscription. Will this change the "free" email standard?

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

I just got the latest version of iTunes and have been poking around the new iPhone application store. So far I have been impressed by the applications that are offered. I started to queue up a number of applications that should be added to my iPhone as soon as the 2.0 software update is released. I took a quick screen-shot of the applications I will be adding as soon as I get the iPhone 2.0 firmware update, they are as follows: AIM, AOL Radio, Baseball, Eventful, Evernote, Facebook, Google Mobile App, Light, Local Picks by TripAdvisor, Loopt, NetNewsWire, NowLocal, NYTimes, Remote, Twitteriffic, Typepad, Whrrl & Yelp The two that I have not seen yet are Flixwagon and Qik as they both have made public statements here and here respectively saying they will be working on the iPhone. I am hoping they are released soon as they stabilize and perfect the service offering. I am curious to see what you will be added to your iPhone - let me know in the comment section below.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending May 25, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Google will be launching Friend Connect tonight to turn the open Web a place for open social apps to run wild as a motivator adoption mechanism for the new Google Gadget 2.0 format with OpenSocial across the Web. With Google powering email and search and collecting user data, I wondered about this new social component and about user controls. I did not get a chance to ask this question on the call due to what may have been technical issues but regardless I wanted to throw it out there to the blogosphere to give their SOMEWHAT FRANK perspectives on the following: How Does Google Friend Connect Put Users In Control? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below if you have a SOMEWHAT FRANK opinion.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending April 20, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending April 13, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 30, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 23, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending February 10, 2008.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Super Tuesday! Did you get the load of election action you were looking for? If not, you might still be able to catch some thanks in part to a map mashup that TechCrunch reported Google teamed up with Twitter to provide. The Google Maps Twitter mashup is similar to Twittervision but for political related twits (a twit is a Twitter message) so you can track the today's Super Tuesday elections on real-time on a map.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 30, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

I think we would all rest more assured if we had a more clear picture of our health outlook. If we could better understand the makeup of our DNA we would would be more clear on what hand we have been dealt by our ancestors. 23andMe, a Silicon Valley-based startup that launched in mid-November, looks to make it easy to get a more clear picture by offering at-home DNA tests kits.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 16, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 1, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Google announced today that they will be looking to get into trying to save the planet by announcing a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. I happy to see Google is taking such a stance and it makes me wonder what will Google do next. In the last week alone Google has announced they are making broadband switches, going to be offering a TV-related product soon, releasing a mobile phone platform soon and a Google Magazine was even spotted in print in China. It is a pretty amazing to think that a single textbox search engine could come to create such a diverse list of products.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending November 25, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Video: Android, Google's open source mobile platform, was announced last week to enable developers to easily create mobile applications. Android will make development for mobile applications for different handsets easier. With over 30 carriers and manufactures on board with Google's Android Platform, new applications should probably start rolling out early in 2008. Creating an Android application is supposed to be easy so I tried to find out how by scouring the Web for some examples. I found an interesting "how to" video included in this article.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending November 11, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending November 4, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

This week the Web development community has been buzzing as details were released about an new widget API called Google OpenSocial. Google officially launched OpenSocial and provided this video to further explain its actions. I have been trying to get my head around what it really means and would like to open it up to my readers for input via a Somewhat Frank poll to get your take on OpenSocial.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Facebook has been blanketing the headlines for months now and it has heated up more with Mark Zuckerberg speaking at TechCrunch40 and the Web 2.0 Summit in the past few weeks. Mark recently hinted at a advertising platform launch coming soon and my friend Nick O'Neill of at AllFacebook has been reporting on for the past few weeks. Apparently the new platform will not just focus on the Facebook space but will also go outside and place advertisements on the Web which will place it in direct competition with Google Adsense and other similar services.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 21, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 14, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 23, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 16, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 9, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 2, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending August 19, 2007.

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: Barry Bonds hit home run 755 last night in a game vs. San Diego tying Hank Aaron for most career home runs in Major League history. John Feeley was in attendance and captured history with his zoom lens in this shot (shown above). Somewhat Frank Weekly...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by Brian Solis of bub.blicio.us at the TechCrunch event in Menlo Park, California on Friday evening (Suits Suck tee shirt photo explained in first story below). Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.29.07 TechCrunch 9 & A Funny "Suit"? I was in attendance for...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: I took a trip to Sausalito yesterday and took in some gorgeous sites including this little red sailboat in the Bay. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.22.07 Google Maps: A users guide to personalization LifeHacker offers a guide to personalizing Google Maps. The Impact of Facebook's Platform...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the week: These green frog cupcakes were spotted and then were quickly devoured at the most recent TECH cocktail in Chicago. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.15.07 AOL Top Web Site Under New Ranking Nielsen/NetRatings will begin reporting total sessions and total time spent on a site in order...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

FeedBurner, the Chicago-based feed management startup that was recently acquired by Google, has decided to offer its Pro services for free. Users can now get all the Pro stats and services for free. FeedBurner's official announcement was posted earlier this morning calling itself "FreeBurner." I assume the shift to free...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: I spotted this sole mushroom while visiting 'the country' in Illinois. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.01.07 iPhone Mania Turns To AT&T Activation Hell The iPhone caused quite a stir and it appears Apple handled demands very well as it was almost too easy to get the...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: I checked out the view from Vista Point and snapped this photo while in San Francisco this weekend. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.24.07 LinkedIn Opening Platform AllFacebook.com reports a rumor that LinkedIn is considering opening their platform to developers. The role of humans in Google search...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: Jen Consalvo recently snapped this photo titled backlight. A little sunshine is a beautiful thing and is good for the soul - this little yellow guy appears to agree. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.17.07 YouTube Remixer: Edit Videos Online At YouTube YouTube has officially launched YouTube...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch from Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom by Josh Hallett was taken this week with the successful launch of the space shuttle. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.10.07 Major Relaunch For Ask: Ask3D It looks very sharp. I like the way they allow users...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: Need for Speed, taken by Marina Campos Vinhal expresses how I have felt, as the last three months have been a blur with days, weeks & months flying by with all the conferences, travel and work. I woke up the other day thinking, what just happened?...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Congrats to Chicago-based feed management and advertising company FeedBurner for getting acquired by Google. The rumor that started a few weeks ago has been confirmed by FeedBurner today (June 1, 2007). There are more details on Google/FeedBurner deal here. In addition, they are just a great group of people. Being...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by Brian Solis of a video camera recording Sarah Meyers interviewing someone at the May 2007 Girls in Tech in SF. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.20.07 Watch TV Stations From Your Web Browser More and more services are popping enabling users to...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Tired of having to go open a number of browser windows to perform a search across a number of search engines? Sputtr wants to make it easier by putting search engine results to your favorite search engines in one page and just one click away from results. As it's name...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: While in Santa Monica, California this week for Twiistup I decided to get up early on Wednesday to go down to the beach and snap this shot. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits 05.13.07 Facebook to Launch Classifieds Service Social network Facebook is set to launch a classified...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: Keyboard infestation could happen to anyone of us. Thanks to bhollar for capturing the moment on film. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 04.29.07 Newsvine Relaunches... Announcing Evergreen Mike Davidson proudly announced the first major overhaul of Newsvine since launching a little more than a year ago. It...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the Week: I snapped this photo of the West Wing while celebrating Earth Day 2007 on the White House grounds. eBay Acquires StumbleUpon StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay for between $40 to $75 million but it seems Google Google tried to rain on their parade with a toolbar...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the week: This San Francisco Trolley photo taken by, friend and co-founder of TECH cocktail Eric Olson, was the first photo I found on Flickr related to the Web 2.0 Expo this week in SF. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 04.15.07 The Web 2.0 Expo Is Upon Us I...

Read The Rest Of This Article

Sphere It

Photo of the week: robobunny by Courtney Brooke. Happy Easter. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 04.08.07 DRM-Free Music EMI announced DRM-free music earlier in the week and now Microsoft is hinting at doing the same. Is this the death of DRM? 500 million+!!! AOL'Sphere Goes Live AOL and Sphere quietly turned...