News

Formspring is shutting down

16 March 2013 10:02 PM
Formspring Logo

Formspring Logo

Formspring, a start-up that helped pioneer the “ask me anything” format of anonymous Q&A online, is shutting down. The San Francisco company announced the news in a blog post yesterday afternoon.

The closure of the Q&A platform will occur March 31st, and users will be able to export their data until April 15th, Formspring’s founder and CEO Ade Olonoh wrote in the closure announcement.

Formspring may have been the first mover in its space when it launched back in 2009, but its brand was certainly hurt when parts of its service were replicated by larger existing players such as Tumblr. The company, which raised a total of $14 million in venture capital, worked to keep its independent edge: For instance, last year Formspring rebranded itself with the launch of an “interest-based social network” that downplayed the anonymous Q&A aspects which had been copied by others. But it seems that it just wasn’t quite enough to keep things growing as Formspring and its investors may have hoped.

Rumors had swirled in recent months that Formspring had made internal cuts of key staffers, and also saw the departure of its charismatic COO Ro Choy. Today’s news shows that it was unfortunately all leading to this closure, and not to an acqui-hire situation.

Here is the blog post announcing the shut down in full:

Formspring launched in November 2009 as a unique way for people to have engaging conversations about anything. Eventually reaching over 30 million registered users and 4 billion posts, Formspring grew beyond my wildest dreams to become an important part of how people interact online.

I’m grateful to each of you that helped make the site better by asking questions and posting responses. None of this would have been possible without you. Through the community you created, we’ve met new people, strengthened relationships, opened our minds to different points of view, and made each other smile.

Unfortunately, and with great sadness, I must announce that Formspring is shutting down. While we’ve had great success in reaching a broad audience, it’s been challenging to sustain the resources needed to keep the lights on.

Sunday, March 31st will be the last day you’ll be able to ask questions or post content on Formspring. You’ll be able to export your responses from now through Monday, April 15th, after which the site and apps will go offline, and any content will be permanently deleted.

You can export the responses you’ve posted by following these steps:

  1. Log into your account and visit http://www.formspring.me/account/export
  2. Click the export button
  3. When your export is ready you’ll receive an email
  4. Visit http://www.formspring.me/account/export again to download a zip file with your data

Sincerely,
Ade Olonoh, Founder and CEO.

Grand Theft Auto: V release date delayed until autumn

31 January 2013 8:19 PM

The latest GTA adventure was due in spring. Now virtual criminals will have to wait until 17 September

The latest Grand Theft Auto adventure was due in spring. Now virtual criminals will have to wait until 17 September. Rockstar Games has finally announced a release date for Grand Theft Auto V, the latest in the company’s hugely successful series of gangster adventures. The game will hit Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles on 17 September. Originally, the publisher had mentioned the possibility of a spring release.

A message posted on the Rockstar Games website says:

We know this is about four months later than originally planned and we know that this short delay will come as a disappointment to many of you, but, trust us, it will be worth the extra time. GTAV is a massively ambitious and complex game and it simply needs a little more polish to be of the standard we and, more importantly, you require.

Set in the fictional city of Los Santos, a stylised version of Los Angeles, GTA V follows three lead characters as they carry out a series of increasingly audacious heists. The game is the most ambitious project in the long-running series, which has so far sold over 125 million units worldwide. The environment is larger than the previous two titles combined.

Alongside the inevitable next installment in the Call of Duty franchise, GTA V is expected to be the biggest video game release of 2013; it is an important title for the industry which has seen retail sales falling over the last year.

source Rockstar & Guardian

The Cleverest & Smartest Online Resume You’ve Ever Seen

26 January 2013 8:02 AM

Fake Amazon Page Is Best Online Resume Ever

Titled “An Amaz-ing Resume” e don’t actually know if Philippe Dubost is any good at his job. But boy, can he throw together a resume.

Dubost, a web product manager currently based in Paris, is looking to travel for his next position. So he decided to make his CV stand out anywhere in the world — by mimicking an Amazon product page.

The result, “Philippe’s Amaz’ing Resume,” is a pitch-perfect pastiche. Suggesting that you add the applicant to your shopping cart to see his price is such a clever way of asking to be hired, we’re amazed no one thought of it before. Especially when followed by the urgent reminder: “only 1 left in stock. Order soon!”

You can see the full resume here. But in case Dubost’s site has been overwhelmed by traffic — he’s already had to change his web hosting service once, according to his Twitter feed — here’s another screenshot:

Product Details

Dubost has taken pains to replicate every last aspect of an Amazon page — even inserting an ad. We’ve seen resumes that look like Facebook pages and Twitter feeds before, but none have this much attention to detail.

And given the fact that hiring is a transaction, making it look like the world’s largest store makes a ton of sense.

Would you hire an applicant based on a resume like this? Let us know in the comments, and check out our galleries of other unusual CV designs below.

Source: Mashable / Yahoo!

Amaz-ing, do you get it? 😉

Kim Dotcom’s Mega Is Now Open To the Public

19 January 2013 7:41 PM

Mega

Mega, Kim Dotcom‘s big, flashy new copyright-dismantling file-sharing/storage site with encryption up the wazoo has finally launched. You can head on over and sign up right now. That is, so long as the site can hold under the crazy traffic. So far, it looks like it’s getting crushed. But different people are experiencing different things.

Gizmodo gave you an inside look at the service yesterday, but now you can get in there and start poking around yourself. Is this the new future of cloud storage? Or maybe the new future of private, encrypted piracy clubs? We’re now officially on our way to finding out. What’s your money on?

And it looks like it’s only the beginning..

Later, Dotcom reported that sign-ups were coming at a rate of thousands per minute.

The site opened up for early access yesterday, and now everyone can go to Mega to sign up and use the service, with a basic, free offering of 50GB of storage, plus three pricing tiers with additional storage and bandwidth capacity. This is being resold by partners of Mega, which include Instra, as well as EuroDNS and Digiweb.

Update 19/01/13 @ 7:41 GMT: Within eight minutes it’s gone from 100,000 user registrations to 250,000 user registrations, Kim Tweeted

“250,000 user registrations. Server capacity on maximum load. Should get better when initial frenzy is over. Wow!!!”

Mr Kim Dotcom tweeted on Twitter, @KimDotcom

It’s here. Google Maps for iPhone

13 December 2012 6:32 PM

Get the new Google Maps and say hello to Google search, voice guided navigation, transit directions, Street View, and much more. The new Google Maps application for the iPhone became the most downloaded free item in Apple‘s App Store on Thursday, just hours after its launch.

The long-awaited app launched in the early hours of Thursday morning, finally bringing relief to the millions of iPhone users forced to rely on Apple’s own much-maligned mapping system.

The popularity of Google Maps provided an insight into the unpopularity of Apple’s own attempt at providing a map service. Its launch came after Apple ditched its partnership with Google ahead of the launch of iOS6, the most recently launched operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

“Starting today, we’re pleased to announce that Google Maps is here – rolling out across the world in the Apple App Store. It’s designed from the ground up to combine the comprehensiveness and accuracy of Google Maps with an interface that makes finding what you’re looking for faster and easier.”

Early reviews of Google Maps were overwhelmingly positive. The New York Times described it as “free, fast and fantastic,” concluding that “Google Maps for iPhone is an astonishingly powerful, accurate, beautiful tool“.

The Next Web said the new tool was “pleasantly responsive and feature-rich,” although noted “a few rough spots that suggest it’s been rushed ahead to market“.

The early response to Google Maps is in stark contrast for the widespread despair provoked by Apple’s own attempt at building a mapping system.

Users reported that railway stations had been imagined, the Sears Tower in Chicago had been mislabelled, Paddington Station in London had ceased to exist and searches for ‘London’ directed UK iPhone users to the Canadian London in Ontario, rather than Britain’s teeming metropolis.

Google Maps had been an inbuilt part of the iOS operating system until this year’s update. Apple decided not to renew its licence with Google, reportedly frustrated that Google had refused to allow it access to its voice-directed turn-by-turn navigation and vector graphics for mapping.

The app looks wonderful. It’s easy to navigate and has a very clean interface and it’s free on the App Store.

* You must sign-in with a Google account to bookmark places.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.