Apple Inc. today has been awarded a new virtual store patent (Patent No. US007660749) by the U.S. Patent Office, indicating the company could roll out a virtual app store environment where users could customize their own virtual characters.
The patent application also gives hints at the environment, suggesting there would be far more outside of the actual store. The entire virtual world, including the environment outside of the store, would dynamically change according to various factors such as the time of day, weather, and possibly even to yearly seasons such as summer and winter – think Rockstar’s GTA.
The Apple patent figures do not provide much insight as to what the end-product would really look like, except minor details that show users could purchase music, books, electronics, and likely an excessive assortment of other goods. So, Apple once again has us guessing as to what Apple CEO Steve Jobs could possibly unveil in the future.
The patent was originally filed back in mid-2006, but was published as approved today.
The world’s largest social network Facebook has hit an important milestone.
The company founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post that Facebook was cash flow positive in the last quarter ended in June.
The company previously forecasted it would become cash flow positive sometime in 2010.
However, many material costs were not considered in the analysis. Only costs required to keep the site operational, such as server costs and other capital expenses, were considered. Acquisition costs, such as the most recent $50 million FriendFeed acquisition were not considered. Facebook also said that private investment cash was not considered. Other costs that can have a material impact are not considered as well, such as accounting charges, interest, and taxes.
Update: When asked what the company is working on, Expono told us “we are working on improving photo browsing (bigger better photos) and new ways users can explore public/friend photos.”
Expono (@expono) is a relatively new photo sharing website that recently went live with a slew of many extensive features you won’t find on the most popular media sharing sites such as Flickr.
Expono lets you upload, manage, geo-tag, backup, embed and share your photos with social media sites such as FriendFeed, Facebook, and Twitter.
If you want to share your photos via Facebook, you just follow the simple instructions to connect your FB account with Expono, then you’ll be able to easily share full photos across Facebook. You can also tag friends in photos.
Facebook Usernames are now live. You can now register your “facebook.com/username” to easily share your Facebook profile with friends. This was one feature Facebook was missing that other services offered that made it easy to share your profile, such as Twitter.
Your Facebook profile has went from a complicated URL structure of http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=111111111 to http://facebook.com/yourname
The feature has just gone live, and in about 15 minutes after the launch, there have been over 500,000 registered usernames, so grab yours before it’s gone.
On April 27, 2009, Facebook announced it would open the entire activity stream via a new API. According to Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing, the new Facebook Open Stream API will be two-way, meaning developers can leverage the data but people will also be able to respond (for example to comments), via the third party applications. Developers will be able to use the entire feed via one simple API call, or use parts of the feed.
Some did not expect Facebook to become so open, as the company was previously very restrictive when it came to taking data outside of the community. Given intensifying competition from Twitter, who is very
comScore has just published a report showing Twitter’s traffic growth worldwide. The numbers are very impressive. Twitter reached 10 million unique worldwide visitors in February 2009, up 700+% over last year. US traffic also surged, reaching 4 million unique visitors in February, up over 1,000% a year ago.
The cable industry is feeling increased pressure from online sites like Hulu that let you watch select TV shows whenever you want straight from your computer. The cable industry is now feeling increased pressure to do something about companies like Hulu who pose a significant threat as trends indicate consumers are shifting to watching TV online and want interactivity and more choice.
Comcast will be expanding its free online video site Fancast to include more social media and social networking features, premium subscription services, and a wider assortment of online videos much like Hulu. Fancast will also stream live shows playing on TV to Fancast as part of a premium feature. Read the full story
The News Corp owned MySpace social network has struggled to reign as the top social network in the U.S., only to be recently overtaken by Facebook.
Facebook continues to experience exponential growth and continues to innovate. Facebook firstly launched its Facebook Chat feature, allowing friends to easily chat straight from their Facebook profile, or though a supported IM client such as Digsby (PC), and Adium (Mac). Read the full story
AOL’s popular social network, Bebo, has introduced a bunch of new features including a revamped layout of user profiles. It has added LifeStream, which allows you to see all of your friend’s updates in a timeline format from various other online sites including Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Delicious. LifeStream also easily lets you add events and media to your timeline. The new features make Bebo more open, letting you see what your friends are up to across various networks, similar to FriendFeed, however, no where near as comprehensive in terms of variety for support of many networks. Bebo also has SocialInbox, which essentially lets you display your entire friends’ feed to other non-Bebo members. Bebo also claims its new open features give it an edge over Facebook for simply being open. Facebook remains a private network, which could change in the near future, as more people want to stay up to date from friends on other networks from a centralized network.
Phone makers are starting to understand that people want more social features on their phone to help keep them connected with friends. You can easily send messages and update your status right now, but it is difficult to get timely information of where your friends are. Google has just launched Google Latitude, allowing you to see your friend’s geographic position on a map in real-time. Read the full story
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The world’s largest social network Facebook has hit an important milestone.
Update: When asked what the company is working on, Expono told us 
The cable industry is feeling increased pressure from online sites like 
Phone makers are starting to understand that people want more social features on their phone to help keep them connected with friends. You can easily send messages and update your status right now, but it is difficult to get timely information of where your friends are. 
Facebook
