Online TV, Movie Guide Impresses

(NEWSER) - The concept of Twitter, widely copied in the US and abroad, has found a home at a mommy-centric website, the Wall Street Journal reports. The site Today’s Mama hosts a new microblog called “Connect," which, unlike Twitter, allows users to join groups by region or topic. But it still hews to the basic format; mothers who want to write more than 140 words need not apply. More»

MIT offers a look new software to improve how we communicate online

(NEWSER) - What’s next in the wide world of Web? MIT’s Technology Review lists 10 up-and-coming apps and gadgets to make communicating even easier:

1. Pinger. Like texting, but with your voice: leave voice messages for your friends on the company’s server.
2. Pownce. A microblogging service like Twitter—but users can send large files back and forth, too.
3. Qik. Broadcast live to the Internet using just your mobile phone.
4. Dash Navigation. Road-ready Internet access that lets drivers grab traffic info on the fly.
5. Ushahidi. To help get the word out during disasters, text messages appear on a web-based map showing the texter’s location.

Info boxes will pop up next to your search

(NEWSER) - Google is rolling out a major new change to its search engine today—the Knowledge Graph . When a user searches for a famous person, place, or thing, a box will pop up on the side of the screen offering a concise list of relevant facts, reports ABC News . Google's database for the new tool includes 500 million people, places, and things combined with 3.5 billion items of information and connections. More»

Two experts will create one for you (if you're 'Wiki worthy')

(NEWSER) - If you're important enough to warrant your own Wikipedia page, it should, in theory, just kind of appear on its own. But sometimes, giving it a $300 nudge doesn't hurt. Two Brooklyn entrepreneurs charge that much to craft an in-depth entry for you or your business on the free online encyclopedia and stuff it with citations, which are essential for meeting the site's standards, reports the New York Daily News . Alas, "a lot of people aren’t Wiki worthy," says one of the co-founders of mywikipro.com . "There are not a lot of articles on them to cite. We turn down a lot of people.” More»

Eric Jackson says the web's top companies never seem to last

(NEWSER) - Right now, Google and Facebook seem invincible, but in five to eight years they could well be gone, argues Eric Jackson in Forbes . "Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone." After all, it's happened to loads of web giants before them. The more you look at the Internet, the more "it seems that your long-term viability as a company is dependent on when you were born," he argues. Just look at Yahoo, now "a shell of its 2000 self." More»