Posted on July 1, 2008 by Steve

Humyo, a new online storage service, has launched with a free service that gives you 25 GB of media file storage - or, for $5/mo. you can get 100 GB with lifetime guaranteed storage and no advertisements. Also included is mobile access and the sending capabilities.
Every few months it seems that another online storage company raises the bar for the amount of free online storage it provides. 25 GB is quite a lot of data; more than the average user needs. You can sign up for free here.
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Posted on June 25, 2008 by Steve
The Nouveau Riche are people who have amassed wealth in their generation without kickdowns from others and who mostly came from a lower standard of living. Many tech startup entrepreneurs are good examples of how you can go from “rags to riches” almost overnight - from Yahoo’s Jerry Yang to Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
How can you tap the disposable incomes of this upper-class? Well, it depends. The Nouveau Riche in Moscow, for example, hit it big in the early 90s from oil money. Why not build a social network for this crowd? Russians love showing off their status - flaunting material goods is a way of life. Letting them express this via an exclusive social network would be a great way to tap this underserved market. That’s not to say there are already players in this arena.
Many VC’s are flocking to places around the world like Moscow where people have accumulated huge disposable incomes that make it smart for businesses to cater to them. The only tricky thing is how to classify a group of people just by socioeconomic status. Solutions like social networking are a good idea because they appeal to any personality type. Whether it’s true or not when the old money players say that the Nouveau Riche lack sophistication, there is obviously some room to tap this market.
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Posted on June 25, 2008 by Steve
It turns out that the Google Trends for websites launch was just a precursor to a much bigger event - the launch of Ad Planner. With this tool, advertisers can find sites to place media buys based on various demographics and statistics. But where is Google getting the site data?
One possible way is via the Google Toolbar. Let’s face it. Google isn’t providing this toolbar to help us do anything but gain valuable traffic data (in aggregate). Maybe this valuable data is being reported back to the Ad Planner tool? Google can’t rely on Google Analytics because many sites haven’t installed it. The vagueness of Google’s data collection explanation leaves this question wide open for the time being. Your thoughts?
Filed under: Google, Tech News | Tagged: google ad planner, google analytics | No Comments »
Posted on May 19, 2008 by Steve

Google’s controversial and much-anticipated Health portal is expected to launch today at the Factory Tour of Search. Google is hosting this event with members of the press, where they are speaking about various search subjects including local search and search quality. Melissa Mayer is expected to announce the launch later this afternoon. Google Health is a service that organizes patient information, making it accessible and useful.
UPDATE (1:31 PM EST): You can now go to http://www.google.com/health/ and create your account.
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Posted on May 9, 2008 by Steve
Yahoo Glue, currently being beta tested in India, is a new search concept that brings together text, images and video into search results, much like what Google is already doing. Glue pages currently work across several different keyword categories such as sports, health and travel.
Why did Yahoo choose India?
India is an important market for Yahoo. They have a lot of content and a large number of developers to be dedicated to the project and who can develop applications around Yahoo’s technology.
Yahoo is showing the world that it’s alive and well, having recently shrugged off Microsoft’s takeover bid
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Posted on May 5, 2008 by Steve

Fontstruct has developed a simple editor that allows you to build, share and download fonts free of charge. The fonts are constructed out of geometric shapes that are arranged in a grid pattern. Users can share their “FontStructions” in the gallery to allow other people to download them or copy them to make their own variations.
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Posted on May 2, 2008 by Steve

Zenbe is a new service (in private beta) that organizes all of your email accounts in one place. Your calendar, task lists, address book and Facebook friends are all accessible in the same window. Best of all, it doesn’t have any ads. For those of you who are discouraged by Gmail’s contextual ad delivery next to your email content, this would be a great alternative. Many of us have multiple email addresses, further complicating things. Zenbe aims to help you better manage it all.

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Posted on May 2, 2008 by Steve
Apologies to the two people that probably read this blog, but I’m back to writing again. I was on a brief hiatus due to a new arrival to the family. My baby girl was born in March and it’s taken me a while to get back in the groove. I promise to keep the blog updated daily! Thanks for your support.
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Posted on March 5, 2008 by Steve
Google Calendar has just released the much-requested tool that will allow you to sync with Microsoft Outlook. You decide the information flow: 2-way (sync back and forth with each other) or 1-way. You can also set how often the sync occurs. The program runs in your system tray, so you can check the icon to see when it’s syncing up. Google Calendar Sync is available via a free download here.

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Posted on March 4, 2008 by Steve

Managing property can be a complicated process filled with high management fees, paperwork and bad service. Streetfolio is trying to streamline the process by providing simple tools that allow you to manage your own properties. The interface allows you to manage your mortgage, insurance, contacts and cashflow and track your lease history and rent increases. Here is an example of the cash flow analytics view:

Streetfolio has pricing plans that start at free and go up to $10 for 5 properties, plus $1 for each additional.
Filed under: Start-ups | Tagged: property management | No Comments »