Categories
Web

Did KillerStartups.com Miss A Trick With Startups.com?

In October 2008, KillerStartups.com – a popular blog that reviewed internet startups purchased the Startups.com domain name for a “mid six figure” amount. A year later, in November 2009, CEO Gonzalo Arzuaga announced the launch of a new Q&A service that was targeted solely at businesses. The understanding was that with the demographic of startup-professionals that KillerStartups enjoyed, the Q&A service would soon turn out to be the go-to destination for businesses looking for answers to their questions.

Close to ten months down the line, it appears as if KillerStartups may have missed a trick here. The website whose domain name was purchased for close to $500,000 hardly has a few thousand visitors reaching out everyday. According to Google Adplanner data, Startups.com receives not more than 22,000 unique visitors in a month who contribute close to 120,000 pageviews in that period. That’s a trickle compared to the over 9 million pageviews that KillerStartups apparently receives.

Startups.com Alexa trend

Of course, these numbers are only estimates. But it is safe to assume that Startups may not have grown to the extent KillerStartups would have liked. But it should be pointed out that these are still early days and the website is likely to grow momentum moving forward. But if the third party metrics are anything to go by, Startups.com may not have done justice to the $500K purchase amount.

Categories
android Mobile

Boot Custom ROMs On Motorola Droid 2 With New Bootstrap Recovery

Though Android is an open source platform, the features on offer still does not satisfy the nerds and consequently these users attempt to root their devices to gain full administrator privileges to their Android handsets. Rooting your phone is however just one part of the story since booting custom ROMs and installing custom kernels is what will help you exploit your device to the fullest.

Now, a new bootstrap recovery software has been released that will enable users who have rooted their Droid 2 to install custom ROMs to their handsets. Hacker Koushik Datta has released this new Droid 2 bootstrap recovery software that will allow easy access to Clockwork recovery and also install flash ROMs when they become available.

The software is not exactly new and uses the same application used for bootstrap recovery of Motorola Droid X. You can download the application here or also check it out on the Android store where it is available at $2 if in case you want to support the developer. Check out the complete instructions here. If you are yet to root your Droid 2, check out the instructions to root here.

I’m no techie and so credits to Droid Life for this piece.

Categories
Gadgets

Prices Of Roku SD Box, HD Box & HD-XR Reduced

Television entertainment is definitely the next big thing with Google, Apple and their likes expected to launch their new products in this space over the next few weeks. This is definitely going to be a challenge for smaller niche players in the industry like Roku and the company is already gearing up for the challenge by getting aggressive in its pricing plans.

So here are the new prices for the Roku gizmos. The Roku SD Box will now cost $59 – down from $79. The Roku HD Box is now available at $69 instead of $99 and the Roku HD-XR is now priced $99 – down $30 from #129. The HD-XR is in fact expected to get a few more features like 1080p streaming and USB playback support soon.

See a pattern in these new prices? Roku has ensured that none of their devices are priced more than $99 – the rumored price of the upcoming Apple TV set-top box, tentatively called the iTV that is expected to be announced at a media event tomorrow.

Categories
Facebook

Facebook Wins Patent For Click-Behavior Based Search Engine Algorithm

Facebook has been awarded the patent for a click-behavior based search engine application. The United States Patent & Trademark office has today approved a patent application titled “Ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation“. The application was filed by Facebook back in 2004 and has been awarded only recently.

The patent describes a search engine ranking algorithm that is based on popularity of websites among the users’ peer group. The patent reads,

“The invention provides still another technique to improve the relevance of search results. According to an embodiment of the invention, search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are ranked based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The predetermined degree of separation is equal to one if the click activities of only the friends of the member who submitted the query are to be examined. “

While this patent may no longer be relevant to current Facebook’s business strategies considering that the company sees more revenues coming from outsourcing the search feature to partners like Bing, it will be interesting to see how this patent will affect search engine players like Google who are likely to have such click-behavior analysis incorporated into their search engine ranking algorithm.

Facebook Search Algo

Curiously enough, the patent does not name Mark Zuckerberg as one of the inventors. The patent is filed in the name of Christopher Lunt, Nicholas Galbreath, Jeffrey Winner.

Categories
Gaming Nintendo

Nintendo DSi & DSI XL Prices To Be Slashed

At a time when Microsoft is learned to have raised the price of its XBox Live subscriptions, Nintendo has announced that the company is slashing down on the price of their consoles – DSi and DSI XL. Following this, the Nintendo DSi will now be available at $149.99 and the DSI XL at $169.99 in the US market. As you will notice, the new prices are $20 lower than the current selling price of $169.99 and $189.99 respectively.  The prices of these consoles in UK and Japan were already slashed in June. The new prices in USA will go into effect starting September 12.

Nintendo is expected to have an exciting few months ahead with the 3DS rumored to launch soon. However, those speculations received a jolt earlier this year when we heard that the Nintendo 3DS launch in UK has been deferred until early 2011.

Let’s hope the price drop on DSi and DSI XL is only preparation for the imminent arrival of the 3DS.

Categories
Mobile

Clearwire Rover Pay-As-You-Go Internet Pricing Revealed

Clearwire has launched its new PAYG mobile internet service that will enable users to enjoy 4G internet connectivity of speeds between 3Mbps to 6Mbps with maximum burst speed reaching 10Mbps. The new service allows unlimited data usage at a price of $5 for a day’s subscription, $20 for a week and $50 for a month.

Users will however need to purchase one of the two Rover dongles to start browsing the 4G internet. The Rover Solo will be available at a price of $99 which Rover Puck – that allows up to 8 devices to be connected to the service – will sell at $149. Both the devices can now be purchased in the US market via Best Buy, Clearwire stores or from the Rover website.

With unlimited data usage plans, the Rover service is sure to find a lot of interested buyers. However, with monthly plans being offered at $50 a month, customers may find them a bit on the higher side since several network carriers offer data plans at much competitive rates.

Categories
iPhone App Tips and Tricks

iPhone App To Improve Battery Life

Looking for a way to optimize your battery and extend its life? There’s an app for that. Unfortunately though, that’s on the Cydia store and not in the Apple App Store which you means you will be required to jailbreak your iPhone. The new Auto3G app is available on the BigBoss repository on Cydia and works with iPhone 3G, 3GS and the latest iPhone 4.

What the app basically does is to turn off the 3G radio each time your iPhone is locked. Consequently, your iPhone will stay connected to the 2G EDGE network that consumes less battery when your iPhone is not in use. Also, the app will automatically turn 3G on when the device is unlocked. The developers claim that this simple functionality will help in doubling your iPhone battery – that’s 7 hours of talk time on 3G and 14 hours of talktime on 2G.

The Auto3G app is available for purchase now at Cydia for a price of $5.99. Check out the video below for how it works.

Categories
iPad App iPhone App iPod Touch News

Plex App For iPhone And iPad Released

Plex, the popular media center service for Apple’s Mac computers has announced the launch of a new app that will bring the media streaming service to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The application will allow you to use your iDevice as a remote control and also additionally let users stream the content from the Plex Media center to your iPhone or iPad. This is significant because it will give users a seamless video consuming experience. Consider watching a movie on your Plex-integrated television and then choosing to watch the rest of the movie on your iPad in the bedroom. With the latest Plex app, that becomes possible.

The Plex app runs on iPhones/iPod Touch running iOS 3.0 and above and on iPads. It also requires an Intel Mac version 5.0 and above and transcodes 720p video with a processor offering at least 2.2GHz capacity.

The app costs $4.99 and can be downloaded from the App Store by clicking here.

Categories
Gaming Microsoft

New Microsoft XBox Live Gold Subscription Price Announced

Microsoft has been offering its users access to features on the XBox Live service in three tiers – monthly, quarterly and annual. The prices of these subscription offers are reported to see a cost increase starting November of this year.

As per the new pricing scheme, the quarterly package will see a rise in cost from $19.99 to $24.99 for the US market. The annual subscription package too will see an increase in pricing from $49.99 to $59.99. The monthly plans will see a modest rise from $7.99 to $9.99. The prices for XBox Live subscriptions in other countries too will increase.

Microsoft XBox Live Gold Subscription Price

According to Microsoft, the pricing revision is in order to take into account the several feature enhancements that have been effected on the service since it was first launched in 2002. During this period, the subscription costs however remained unchanged. The new costs will thus factor in the new product enhancing features added over the years.

Categories
Deals Gadgets

Go Deals – Save $500 On Dell & HP Pavilion Notebooks

There are two deals today that can help you save up to $500 cumulatively

Dell D520 Notebook – Save $400

HP Pavilion DV6-3050US NoteBook – $100 Discount