Windows Media player 11 & Vista

Microsoft launches Windows Media player 11:

“Microsoft Corp. today released to the public Microsoft^® Windows Media^® Player 11 for Windows^® XP, a significant milestone for music fans and the digital entertainment experience on Windows. This latest version of Windows Media Player offers consumers a test-drive of the breakthrough capabilities in Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista™, including enhanced search and media management technologies, a visually driven user interface, and optimized support for portable music players.”

Windows Vista team blog:

“With Windows Vista and 2007 Office system, we didn’t just redesign the software packages themselves, but are also introducing new packaging for the two products.  The packaging has been completely revised and, we hope, foreshadows the great experience that awaits you once you open it. Check out the photos “

via Techmeme

Rohit Aggarwal

Social Networking sites for stock market investment

SocialPicks is a community for stock market investors to share investment ideas, exchange market research, and track peers’ investment performance.

DigStock is a financial website that provides investors access to major financial news as well as user-submitted stories (e.g. stock picks and analysis) and individual stock rankings by investors. With DigStock, users rank stocks and submit stories, which are reviewed (i.e. ranked and tagged) by other investors. Only the most timely, relevant, and valuable stories go to the front page.

Stocktickr is a collaborative web site that promotes information sharing about stocks. We like to call it “social trading”. You add stocks to your stocktickr and assign tags to each stock. Unlike other portfolio trackers on the web, stocktickr captures the current price as you add a stock. When you go back to view the stocks your tracking, you see when you added it, what tags you used, any comments you added, and the price when you added it.

Gradr.com is a stock market flavored, social networking web site. gradr.com was developed from December 2005 to June 2006 and launched in June 2006. Type in the stock symbol in the search bar to view the stock you want to grade. Next, simply click the “Upgrade” link to upgrade the stock, or the “Downgrade” link to downgrade a stock. You may only grade a stock once per day. Registration is required to grade stocks.

Bullpoo.com is both an interactive stocks community and a personalized investment tool. We allow users from all over the world to collaborate and share investing knowledge through blogs, discussion, and virtual trading.

FeelingBullish.com attempts to put the collective wisdom of our investment community at your finger tips. By democratizing the process of rating and discussing stocks, our community should have access to a broader range of information, more dynamic content, and more independent perspective – things that should make our decision making process smarter.

via Information Arbitrage

Update:-

FeedTheBull  is closest to Digstock, but it is also releasing a stock trading game where users will be able to compete against each other. FeedTheBull (FTB) is a user driven, social content website. FTB allows the Bull community to submit relevant information and congregates it to one site and then the rest of the community can vote on what they like. The articles/comments/blogs that get the most votes are then promoted to the front page. This is a way to give the power back to the community.

Rohit Aggarwal

Concerns in the purchase of a Tablet

I got my Gateway Tablet 10 months back and I am a very satisfied user of it. Before purchasing the tablet I was having few concerns:

1) How precisely can I write on a tablet?

I was in habit of writing really small to fit maximum stuff on a piece of paper. Before tablet, the only experience I had writing with stylus was on a PDA and I was never happy with it. The above question was my biggest concern and therefore I placed this query on tabletpcreview forum.  Following posts were also helpful in making my decision: here and here. Plus, I went to BestBuy and tried a tablet before purchasing.

Now when I have used the tablet for more than 10 months, I am in a better position to answer this question. One can write on a tablet with the same precision as with a 0.5 mm pencil on paper. Note-taking on a tablet is really a breeze.

2) How different is the feel of a stylus on tablet as compared to the feel of a pen on paper?

Well, I could not feel any difference. Infact I like the feel of the stylus on tablet better than that of pen and paper. 

3) How rugged is the table in comparision to a laptop?

I have used my tablet roughly and it has never given me any problem.

I hope this post alleviates few concerns of new tablet enthusiasts.

Rohit Aggarwal

Google & Sony BMG Music

Google has signed an agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. This agreement allows Google to provide access of Sony’s music videos to users. Following is the monetizing part of the business model:

” Monetizing through Ad-Supported Content
SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT will be able to monetize its music video content online by leveraging Google’s extensive advertiser network of hundreds of thousands of advertisers. SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s expansive music video catalog will be sponsored by Google advertisers making it free to all users. The advertising revenue generated will be shared by SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google.”

via Techmeme

Rohit Aggarwal

IE7 and Windows Vista RC2

IE7 team blogs about the final release of IE7: —  “The final release of IE7 is fast approaching … and I mean really fast … and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates a few weeks after it’s available for download.  We want to ensure that you are ready and the information below will help get you there.”

Vista team blog declares:  —  “Today, Microsoft is excited to announce the availability of Windows Vista RC2 to Technical Beta Testers, TAP Testers, and MSDN/TechNet subscribers.  This new build of Windows Vista offers users a higher level of performance and stability …”

Rohit Aggarwal

Comscore’s- Measuring the digital age

Recently Comscore releases the following statistics:

“Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively.  Meanwhile, Xanga.com has a younger user profile, with 20 percent of its users in the 12-17 age range, about twice as high as that age segment’s representation within the total Internet audience.  Not surprisingly, Facebook.com, which began as a social networking site for college students, also draws a younger audience.  More than one-third (34 percent) of visitors to Facebook.com are 18-24 years old, approximately three times the representation of that age segment in the general Internet population.”

I wonder how accurate are their results? Their methodology for reaching the above results is:

“This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes.”

via Techmeme

Rohit Aggarwal