Webby News

Adeo Ressi’s Founder Institute San Diego outpost has graduated 12 startups in its inaugural program. Announced in March 2009, the Founder Institute offers entrepreneurs and very early stage startups an environment designed to help foster their growth and education. The program, which is now active in nine cities worldwide, holds two four-month long sessions annually in each location, which include mentorship sessions from experienced tech entrepreneurs. The program also has a unique structure that allocates some equity to each of the founders involved, so that they have an incentive to work together.

The Fall 2009 San Diego semester has just graduated 12 startups. Mentors for the semester included Trip Adler, CEO, Scribd; Philip Kaplan, Cofounder, Blippy; and Peter Pham, CEO, BillShrink. The new startups include:

Remember that whole porn crackdown that nobody cares about anymore? Wonder why it happened?

It wasn’t the money. It wasn’t hypocritical. It wasn’t about defending the rights of women to browse the app store unflustered. It was about image. Here’s Gruber’s cogent and true argument:

I think what Apple was getting squeamish about wasn’t the sexy apps themselves, but the cheesiness that the sexy apps (and their prominence in best selling lists) was bestowing upon the general feel and vibe of the App Store. One thing I wasn’t aware of before the recent crackdown was the degree to which these apps were seeping into various non-entertainment categories. E.g., like half the “new” apps in the “productivity” category featured imagery of large-breasted bikini-clad women.

These apps were shut down temporarily. They will be back, and the ban wasn’t about not offending our sainted mothers. It was about making a retail experience that people want to visit and, like Chef Ramsay shutting down Casa Roma rather than serve the rest of the night’s meals in a haphazard, sloppy way, Apple decided to shut things down and make their decisions. This, in turn, forces Apple management to make a decision.

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class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/26/facebook-app-notifications-gone/&title=Facebook to Say Goodbye to App Notifications on March 1st&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">Last month, we reported that Facebook was transitioning href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/20/facebook-applications-email/">from application notifications to e-mail notices. Today, the href="http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=365" target="_blank">Facebook Developer blog has added further information about this new method and announced that as of March 1, 2010, app notifications will be discontinued.

For users who hate being bombarded by href="http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/get-rid-facebook-notifications/">app notifications in Facebook, this is good news — just don’t expect notifications to disappear altogether.

Instead of using universal notifications, developers can now choose from a number of methods to communicate changes or updates to users. Facebook recommends using either counters, dashboard news notices or sending users e-mail messages (assuming they have agreed to e-mail opt-ins).

Counters, for all intents and purposes, will be just like notifications as they currently exist, except they will be specific to each individual app. If your app is bookmarked in your Facebook page, a counter indicating the number of notices you have from an app.

Facebook has also created a page of href="http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Communication_Channels_Best_Practices" target="_blank">best practices for developers communicating with users.

What do you think about the deprecation of app notifications? Let us know in the comments!

Reviews: href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336650-Facebook" target="_blank">Facebook

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/app-notifications/">app notifications, href="http://mashable.com/tag/developers/">developers, href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/trending/">trending, href="http://mashable.com/tag/web-apps/">web apps

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class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/26/which-olympic-gold-medalists-are-winning-the-most-online-buzz-stats/&title=Which Olympic Gold Medalists Are Winning the Most Online Buzz? [STATS]&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">The href="http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-and-canadian-olympic-champs-strike-gold-in-online-buzz/" target="_blank">Nielsen Company measured online buzz around Olympic athletes and found that skiers Lindsey Vonn (U.S.) and Alexandre Bilodeau (Canada) are the most buzzed-about gold medal athletes for their respective countries.

The analytics company compared online buzz surrounding gold medal winners in both Canada and the United States. The data comes from the company’s database, which continually looks at consumer-created online content in the form of blog posts, blog comments, board/forum discussions and threads, group activity, selected href="http://mashable.com/social-media/twitter">Twitter feeds, citations/links to href="http://mashable.com/social-media/youtube">YouTube videos and news stories.

For those following the Olympic Winter Games this year, it might come as a bit of a surprise that Lindsey Vonn — who has commanded 36.22% of total U.S. Olympian gold medal buzz — dominates another fan favorite (snowboarder Shaun White) by more than a 10% margin, especially given the buzz about his href="http:mashable.com/2010/02/18/shaun-white-olympics-2010-video/">Double McTwist trick.

As for Canada, the Olympics homebase this year, ice dancing gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are receiving nearly equal amounts of online buzz with 16.88% and 16.21% of total gold medal winner buzz respectively. The dominate athlete, however, is skier Alexandre Bilodeau how accounts for 23.33%, or nearly a quarter, of all buzz among Canadian gold medalists.

[img credit: href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tkellyphoto/" target="_blank">tkellyphoto]

Reviews: href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336651-Twitter" target="_blank">Twitter, href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336658-YouTube" target="_blank">YouTube

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/celebrities/">celebrities, href="http://mashable.com/tag/olympics/">olympics, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-media/">social media, href="http://mashable.com/tag/sports/">sports, href="http://mashable.com/tag/winter-olympics/">winter olympics

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Google has just turned on a nifty location feature in search. Now, you can refine search results with a “Nearby” button, which will filter your results that cater to your location. So if you do a Google search for Italian restaurants, you can click the “Show Options” button to access a “nearby” filter to see results for Italian restaurants in the city/area you live in. You’ll also be given local business results as well.

Google says that it will shows you Nearby results according to your IP address or your preferred location, if you customized your location in search settings.

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class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/27/google-nexus-one-verizon/&title=Google Nexus One Comes to Verizon March 23 [RUMOR]&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com"> href="http://mashable.com/2009/12/12/nexus-one/">Google’s Nexus One is coming to Verizon on March 23rd, according to a report. The launch announcement is expected during CTIA Wireless 2010 in Las Vegas.

The device recently passed FCC inspection for use on Verizon’s CDMA network, reports href="http://www.neowin.net/news/google039s-nexus-one-coming-to-verizon-on-march-23" target="_blank">Neowin, citing an anonymous Googler as its source. The phone originally launched in January, with the option to buy it unlocked or with a T-Mobile contract.

What do you think? Does Verizon make the Nexus One a more appealing offer?

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/google-phone/">google phone, href="http://mashable.com/tag/nexus-one/">nexus one, href="http://mashable.com/tag/verizon/">verizon

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class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/26/google-nearby/&title=Google Adds New Location-Based Options to Search&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">Google has just href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/refine-your-searches-by-location.html" target="_blank">added a new “Nearby” tool to the Search Options panel that lets users refine results for a custom search experience centered around location.

The new location-based search option is now available to English users of Google.com. To access it, simply conduct your search as normal, select “Show Options” -> “Nearby.” From there you can switch between your default location and a custom (manually entered) location. Results can also be filtered by city, state or region for broader or narrower results.

The addition of Nearby to web results is yet another way Google is highlighting its location savvy and pimping out its Place Pages service.

As you may recall, Google recently released href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/07/near-me-now-googles-mobile-homepage-is-location-aware/ ">Near Me Now for location-based mobile queries, and href="http://mashable.com/google-buzz/">Google Buzz for mobile offers a check-in based social experience. In the future we expect all of Google’s location services to complement each other more and create a complete picture for an entire location-aware Google experience.

Reviews: href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336661-Google" target="_blank">Google, href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/577072-Google-Buzz" target="_blank">Google Buzz

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/google/">Google, href="http://mashable.com/tag/google-nearby/">Google Nearby, href="http://mashable.com/tag/location/">location, href="http://mashable.com/tag/search/">Search

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