Joost, a struggling video streaming site, may have found their salvation this weekend by adding support for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
Founded by Niklas Zennström of Skype and Janus Friis of KaZaA, Joost has had trouble finding a home in the video streaming marketplace, despite a wealth of well known media properties that are all free for the viewing. Content varies from music videos to feature length films such as The Fifth Element and Legends of the Fall. It is hard not to find something on the Joost app (iTunes link) in their over 46,000 videos that will appeal to some taste you have.
While the application does have its positives such as not even having to log in to a Joost account to use it, it does suffer from the fact that it will only work over Wi-Fi. Many people on the iTunes Store are giving this app low ratings because it will not work over cellular networks for their iPhones. While this would be nice if it could work that way, it would just be too much of a drain on their bandwidth to be feasible at this time.
I am personally a fan of Joost from when they first launched, and the idea of being able to lay in bed and watch classic Transformers episodes is fine by me. Some other reviewers on the iTunes Store have called the selection “meh”, and they might have an argument if they actually paid anything for the service, but a free service which offers you complete televsion series, feature length movies for free and music videos, I’m sorry to say, but I have no empathy for your dislike of the selection.
Black Friday is over, now are you prepared for Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday is the lesser known cousin to the infamous Black Friday, but it is the online shopping equivalent of the famous day of sales. It is always the Monday following Thanksgiving in the United States and the theory goes that after you’ve done all your mall shopping you are ready to start doing some online shopping. While some people debate if the day really makes a difference, I have personally noticed that responsiveness of major online shopping sites is slower on that day.
Have you done your research? Is this really the best price you’ve found on the item?
Are you familiar with this site? Just because you found a great bargain doesn’t mean you should just hand over your personal info without checking them out.
Extended warranties should always be viewed with some trepidation.
Do they guarantee delivery prior to your holidays?
Are they charging for shipping, or can you find another site offering free shipping?
These are all rules you should ask yourself every day that you shop online, but it doesn’t hurt to cast an extra eye as you are in the throes of holiday shopping. Just remember to take your time, and enjoy having the ability to shop in your pajamas!
Black Friday sales aren’t limited to just physical goods this year, it seems. Fire up your iPhones and iPod Touches, Christmas has come early for all of you, too!
While there are lots of nifty applications out there for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it is also a quick way to run up a hefty bill by buying numerous applications. Luckily AppShopper is keeping an eye out for any price drops, and they have a slew of listings of apps that have set themselves to free for today, November 28th, 2008,only. Make sure you double check any prices before you make any final purchases, but you shouldn’t have any problems.
Also, remember that the more apps you have on your device, the slower the backup can be. You may only want to backup your apps every so often because people report over three hours to backup when they get up to dozens and dozens of apps.
So, stop reading this, and get to shopping for those free apps!
While Black Friday sales are always made up of amazing deals, who really wants to wake up at those insane hours and then fight for the items you really want? Luckily the retailers are getting smart and putting their items online this year so you can shop from the comfort of home.
Many retailers already have their deals up, and you can find listings of the retailers at the following sites:
Some retailers out there like Radio Shack are putting up all of the items for you to be able to order, and others like Best Buy are offering online exclusives in addition to the items they will have in their stores tomorrow.
While we have written several articles about how Blu-ray may not be the best choice for you to jump in to, we saw a good chance to show you how you may be able to save yourself some hassles.
Walmart is advertising on the back page of their Black Friday circular for a Samsung Blu-ray player for $198. While they didn’t list the model number, we were able to locate it by going to BlackFriday.info that had it listed as being a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player. So there is step one of how research has paid off already in just getting the model number.
My first rule of thumb wehn price checking something is to head over to Amazon.com and see what they are charging for the item. Sure enough, Amazon has it, and it’s on sale also. Their price (at the time of this writing) is $203.58 with free shipping. Remember, they may be higher than Walmart’s price, but you aren’t only getting free shipping, you’re also not paying sales tax, so this is actually cheaper than going to Walmart, and you also are getting more technical information about the product, as well as actual user reviews.
Total time digging was maybe three minutes and I have saved myself sales tax, paying for gas and time in the store. Of course, all of this is dependent on you wanting a Blu-ray player, but it was an easy example of how research can end up saving you in all kinds of ways.
YouTube has jumped into the world of widescreen videos.
Announced very late into the evening on Monday, YouTube has made their video play into a widescreen format to support 16:9 ratio content. The tradtional 4:3 ratio, which most videos have been up until now, will still play fine in the player, they will just be centered inside the player.
Their blog explains the motivation behind this latest change.
We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.
Looking at the embedding code that allows you to place the videos on your site, they are still listing at 425 pixels wide, so unless this is changed, widescreen videos could look odd on your site. It is also doubtful most blogs have that much space, so it will be interesting to see what this does those people who post a lot of videos.
It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and for those of us in the United States, that means two things: Turkey overdose and Black Friday sales.
The day after Thanksgiving is best known as the first official day of the Christmas shopping season, or more commonly referred to as “black friday” as it is the day retailers supposedly go in to the black on their books for the year. What it means to consumers is wildly low sales with difficult to beat prices.
With the economy in its current turmoil, retailers are going to be throwing everything they can at consumers to lure them in, and that is why it is always wise to do your research before you head out to the store and get caught up in a buying frenzy. Luckily there are sites such as BFAds.net that list all of the items and scan the sales fliers for you so you can look at all the different sales options for that day in one handy place.
Once you have found the items that interest you, that is where the real fun begins. If you can locate the model number for the item, look things up that way, if not, try to find something similar that you can price check. Is it really that much of a mark down from it’s every day price? Do other stores have it at a similar price everyday, but offer some sort of incentive if you order it from them.
The secret to a successful day in the stores on Black Friday is to known what you are going after and if it really is a deal. The Internet has greatly leveled the playing field because not only can people plan ahead, but they can also do much more thorough research. You can a lengthy list of Black Friday resources on the web that will not only help with telling you what’s on sale, but some will help you make lists out. So, what are you waiting for? Get to researching!
It would seem that Dr. Pepper may know soda pop, but they certainly do not know how to manage a website.
For those who may not know of the situation, Dr. Pepper offered a challenge to the band Guns N’ Roses to release their 14-years-in-the-making album, ‘Chinese Democracy’ before the end of 2008. If the band met this deadline, Dr. Pepper would give everyone in the United States of America a free soda. Well, the band met that demand, and the album was officially released today. Dr. Pepper stood by their word and said that people could go to their website for 24 hours on November 23rd and claim a coupon for a free drink.
While it is good of them to have stood by their word, no one can seem to navigate their site to claim the coupons. When you enter, you get a static page that says “Loading” and never changes. After a while, the following message appeared at the top of the page.
This website has been designed to be keyboard accessible. To access the primary navigation utilize the tab button. Access to secondary and tertiary navigation can be further accessed through a combination of tab and arrow key actions.
Well, even that doesn’t seem to work. As I am writing this, Dr. Pepper has changed the site again, but clicking on the link to the free promotion takes you to a page that is also not loading.
In short, Dr. Pepper should have expected this massive surge of traffic and prepapred for it, but instead they seem to be trying to play catch up while the traffic continues to pour in. While it is an interesting concept for a promotion, it certainly could have been handled better and with a better anticipation for the type of demand they would be facing. There is a lesson here for all webmasters when it comes to their trafficduring a promotion, and it comes from the Boy Scouts handbook: Always Be Prepared.
Gift cards have been a popular gift for the winter holidays for several years now, but there is some question if they are a safe choice this year.
There is an email currently making the rounds that suggests it is unsafe to buy gift cards from numerous retailers this year due to their financial status. Though it does say the accuracy can’t be vouched for, there is a mixture of accurate and inaccurate comments about companies on the list. We have reprinted the email in full below, but we do not recommend you pay attention to it at this time, we just want you to see what we are discussing.
Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as ‘Bankrupcy [sic] Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.
The list includes (I cannot verify the accuracy of this as this list was forwarded to me. Please feel free to clarify in the comments if there are additions or deletions to be made):
Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores mo re to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stor~s
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard’s to close some stores
Personally, I think this is a deceptive practice by these companies. I suppose, if you’re in bankruptcy with little options to come out of it, you’re not worried about customer loyalty. I can imagine a huge uproar as folks drop by on Jan. 1 and find their cards worthless.
While this email is partially correct, you need to do research on your own about each company. KSL TV 5 out of Utah has tackled this email and shown some of the mistakes made in the email already.
The problem with emails such as this is that they come off as false and can end up masking real problems that do exist. Alina Tugend of the New York Times addresses some of the real dangers that exist with gift cards from stores that are going bankrupt at this tough financial juncture. If you do plan to buy cards, there are some good resources out there such as Leveragecards.com and giftcardrescue.com that will allow you to trade out cards you bought from them for other cards if the chain you bought them for should go bankrupt.
The most prudent thing to do with gift cards is just to make sure you use them as soon as you get them so matters don’t change with the company. The second thing is avoid them if at all possible, and that may be the safest course for right now as companies sort themselves out.
Google has upgraded their syncing for the BlackBerry with the ability to merge your contacts between your phone and their system.
Up until now, Google Sync merely syncrohnized your calendar between Google and your BlackBerry, but as of the latest revision you can add your contact lists to that feature. I downloaded it today, and my two lists are now merged on both my device and in my Google account. The process is extremely easy, and takes only a few moments.
The phone will need to reboot after this has downloaded
Open up Sync via your apps, tell it you want to add contacts, and it will then ask you for your login information for Google
Once that is done, the Sync will handle the rest, and you just have to be patient for the first sync to happen
I downloaded it on Thursday, and it worked perfectly with only one attempt. If you don’t feel confident about entering the mobile address, simply visit the Google Sync page, enter your cell number, and they will text the link to you so you can just click on the link and go there directly.
Joost, a struggling video streaming site, may have found their salvation this weekend by adding support for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
Black Friday is over, now are you prepared for Cyber Monday?
Black Friday sales aren’t limited to just physical goods this year, it seems. Fire up your iPhones and iPod Touches, Christmas has come early for all of you, too!
While Black Friday sales are always made up of amazing deals, who really wants to wake up at those insane hours and then fight for the items you really want? Luckily the retailers are getting smart and putting their items online this year so you can shop from the comfort of home.
The other day we discussed how 
YouTube has jumped into the world of widescreen videos.
Gift cards have been a popular gift for the winter holidays for several years now, but there is some question if they are a safe choice this year.
Google has upgraded their 
