Location: Don't buy all the hype. Yet.

Three Tech Trends to Watch in 2011
Last year in technology had plenty of highlights. It also had its share of surprises -- and disappointments. What are some things in the tech world to look forward to in 2011? Briefly, here are a few things in my crystal ball worth keeping an eye on in the tech sector: 1. More Enterprise Technology Consolidation. Last year marked frenzied buying by big Enterprise Software and hardware companies like Salesforce.com (CRM), Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). The logic? Their coff...

NY-Based Yext Launches League of Advertisers That Are Not Google
New York-based startup Yext is launching a feature that competes with Google's businesses listings and it's got Mapquest, Yelp and Citysearch on board. A few months ago, Google introduced photos, videos, coupons, links and other flair that businesses can add to their Google search results for $25 a month, as part of the company's effort to dominate the local advertising market. The move threatens the bread and butter of locally-focused sites like Citysearch, which is owned by IAC—especia...

City's Statues Get Caped
NEXT » Instead of the red capes initially reported being put on the city's statues, it looks like NBC's The Cape is adorning the figures with the black/blue cape the show's namesake wears. They still look pretty silly, but at least they're accurate. NBC has rolled out an interactive map of the 30 statue locations, with information about the person depicted, and obvious promotion aside it's actually pretty interesting! Most people will be content to wonder why someone threw a black sheet ...

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/5/2011
Scientists at the University of Tel Aviv tagged a vulture and fitted it with a radio transmitter as part of a study of migration patterns. The bird wandered all the way to Saudi Arabia, and when it alighted, it was captured and denounced by the locals as a spy for the Mossad. News of the event spread rapidly throughout websites in the Middle East, and it was denounced as a “Zionist plot”. In other news, 500 religious scholars of the “moderate” Barelvi group Jamaat-e-Ahl-e...

Light Posting
I was out for most of the day today, and the accumulation of email during my absence is astounding. I’m still trying to catch up. I’ve been working on a big project which I had hoped to post tonight, but it looks like it will be delayed. Use this comment thread to leave interesting tidbits of news, or argue amongst yourselves. Please observe basic civility, however — pretend Miss Manners is watching. Or maybe Big Brother. Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook...

Has Google given up on social?
I don't put a lot of faith in Munster's comments but he said it: Google (GOOG) has given up on Social.  He says Google has ceded the Social crown to Facebook and is back at work making its Search better. I think Munster might have a bit of a tunnel vision when it comes to Social.  One wouldn't have much trouble arguing that  YouTube is one of the bigger social sites on the net.  Also Google Buzz has been integrated into Google Reader RSS pretty nicely (though it had a ro...

Post Ofice Privatisation
I seemed to receive a rather large number of Christmas Cards this year featuring pillar boxes or post boxes, and assumed this was some sort of subliminal Protest against their privatisation. However, in the end the robins outnumbered the post and pillar boxes by eight to five. I expect I am not alone in thinking that the Post Office and the Royal Mail are one and the same organisation, but apparently they are separate. The Post Office is to be "mutualised" and it is the Royal Mail which is to be...

High school principal dies after school shooting
The 17-year-old Student, Robert Butler, Jr., shot the principal and assistant principal, then left the school and killed himself in his car a few blocks away. Butler, who transferred in November to Millard South High School, left a Suicide note on a Social Media site that said the school "drove me to this." "Everybody that used to know me I'm sry but Omaha changed me and (expletive) me up. and the school I attend is even worse ur gonna here about the evil (expletive) I did but that (expletive) ...

High school principal dies after school shooting
OMAHA, Neb | Thu Jan 6, 2011 12:01am EST OMAHA, Neb (Reuters) - The son of a police detective shot two administrators at his High School on Wednesday and one of them later died in Hospital, authorities said. The 17-year-old Student, Robert Butler, Jr., shot the principal and assistant principal, then left the school and killed himself in his car a few blocks away. Butler, who transferred in November to Millard South High school, left a Suicide note on a Social Media site that said the school ...

NAVTEQ Demonstrates Next Generation Location Experiences for the Connected Car
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of maps, traffic and location data enabling navigation, Location-Based Services and mobile advertising around the world, today unveiled demonstrations of how it's transforming the driving experience through connected location content. NAVTEQ demonstrates next generation uses of its content at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) (Booth #36026, South Hall). The demonstration apps show how drivers benefi...

Photo of the day: A changing of the guard
LOVE it (Via @ BrentTeichman ). Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye. Here’s what that spot looked like a little later on. Michelle Malkin liveblogged the official changing of the guard (and gavel - video of that below ) festivities here . In other great 112th Congress news, Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC-2) has a new Facebook page and Twitter account. If you’re on one or the other (or both) make sure to “like” her Facebook page to receive updates, and follow her on Twitter ...

'Facebook For Parents': Author Of Book Gives Advice
CBSLosAngeles.com: Linda Fogg Phillips, author of "Facebook For Parents" and "Top 25 Things Parents Ask About Facebook" stopped by KCAL9 on Wednesday to talk about the impact the popular social network has had on Children. Read the whole story: CBSLosAngeles.com Get HuffPost Books On Twitter and Facebook! Know something we don't? E-mail us at [email protected] ...

Airfare website disputes spread
Expedia, the world's largest online travel company, will no longer list American Airlines flights on its website, lobbing the latest volley in a battle between the airline and some Web-based travel companies that could have a ripple effect on consumers. Expedia stopped listing American's flights as of Jan. 1, after the two sides failed to resolve a dispute about a booking system that American prefers and that provides more information about services it offers for a fee, such as priority boarding...

For the record, we apologize for these errors, too
"I will alert school divisions to the factual errors found in the reviewed history textbooks," State Superintendent Patricia Wright said in a statement. "I also will direct Virginia Department of Education staff to provide guidance to educators in the field on how to ensure that classroom instruction is not distorted by the misinformation found in these textbooks." Upon further review, a number of previously undiscovered errors have been found in Virginia's fourth-grade histo...

Social Media Agency Dachis Group Gets $30 M. to Help Companies Tweet
Dachis Group is the largest Social Media consultancy in the world, according to VentureBeat. The company, which has an office in New York, is planning to grow even more. Dachis Group just raised $30 million. Dachis Group sells research and software that helps companies manage their Social Media presence using something it calls "social business design." "By redesigning customer participation, Workforce collaboration, and business partner optimization from the perspective of the four core arche...

Facebook's Goldman Deal Is Another Sign of a Comatose IPO Market
A few months ago, I had lunch with a prominent technology Venture Capitalist. Like many other VC leaders, he was focused on businesses growing in China, but he was adamant that his Chinese portfolio companies not list in the U.S. -- and with good reason. For small-cap technology companies, he explained, the U.S. has become an undesirable and difficult place to list. Sarbox regulations are costly to fulfill. Institutional investors are gun-shy. And analyst coverage has contracted enormously, m...

2011 Consumer Electronics Show: Smart appliances keep users connected to home
Oh, and that yogurt only has a couple of days left on it. But don't take my word for it. Check your cell phone. "The connected home" has become a central theme at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), with electronics companies showing off what an Internet-connected refrigerator, stove or television could do for your home. One of those appliances, from LG, touted the ability to text a shopping list based on what is low in the fridge a...

Zandar's Thought Of The Day
Hey look everyone, Jonah Goldberg decided his 2011 New Year's Resolution was to dredge up crapass failed conservative arguments from years ago, sign his name to them, and turn them into the teacher. One irony, of course, is that Abortion is actually the one area of Public Policy where there are at least two bodies — and two lives — in question and in conflict. Or at least that is the claim of many. The only bodies in conflict in Jonah's universe are the gaseous, planetary ones he is ...

Youngest son of former Iranian shah takes his own life in the US
Iran's exile community has expressed its grief after it was confirmed yesterday that the former shah's youngest son took his own life in the United States. The death of 44-year-old Alireza Pahlavi of a gunshot wound at his home in Boston brought home the personal tragedies of many who fled Iran more than three decades ago, and symbolised another lost link to the era of the Western-backed dynasty's Peac ADVERTISEMENT ock Throne. In Iran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency carried a brief...

Boehner to livestream opening day of new Congress on Facebook
Incoming House Speaker John Boehner wants all his friends to see him get sworn in on Wednesday - Facebook friends that is. For the first time ever, Congress will be broadcast live on Facebook. Boehner announced that beginning at noon on Wednesday, people can go on the popular Social Media website for live coverage of the first day's floor proceedings and his first Speech as Speaker of the House. The incoming speaker will direct people to visit the "Pledge to America" Facebook pa...

"The University of Wisconsin at Madison beat out the University of Chicago and Harvard to be the top national university by inte
Internet brand equity, baby! You hear that? We're #1! What's internet brand equity? It's a measure of who's talking about you online, based on Internet data, Social Media, blogs and the top 75,000 print and electronic media outlets. The resulting tool, the group claims, gauges the relative value of the various institutions and how they change over time. The Global Language Monitor created their ranking system in order to eliminate what they described as inherent bias in the other published rank...

Anti-cuts campaigners meet to debate next move (at NetrootsUK summit)
Source: The Guardian Student and union Activists join with anti-tax avoidance and anti-racism campaigners to discuss tactics at NetrootsUK summit Matthew Taylor| Tuesday January 4 2011 17.33 GMT - Hundreds of online activists, student leaders and union officials who have been at the forefront of anti-government Protests over the past six months are meeting this week to co-ordinate the next stage of their anti-cuts campaigns. The conference, which is modelled on the successful Netroots Nation cam...

Daily Specials
The White House Blog’s Top 10 of 2010 (The White House Blog) The top ten White House blog posts cover a range of topics from explaining what’s in the Healthcare Bill to supporting Military Families. C-SPAN Expands Social Media/Online Offerings for Following the 112th Congress (C-SPAN pdf) The public affairs network is expanding the ways its audience can connect with the legislature through online and social media. ...

Planned, promoted on social media sites?
Mayfair Mall officials said Monday they are considering unspecified operational changes one day after dozens of Young People stormed the popular mall late in the afternoon, scaring customers and store employees. Wauwatosa police confirmed on Monday that a gun was fired outside the mall. It was not clear whether the disruption inside the mall was connected to an attempted armed Robbery near a bus stop where police said the gun was fired. One eyewitness said Monday that anywhere from 80 to 100 you...

Speaker of the Facebook: Boehner Livestreams Congress Opening Session
Incoming Speaker John Boehner is taking over both the House and Facebook simultaneously. For the first time ever, the opening session of Congress will be broadcast live on Facebook, according to Boehner's director of New Media Nick Schaper on the GOP Leader's blog. Viewers will be able to watch the livestream of Boehner being sworn in, interact with other viewers, and directly relay feedback to their elected representatives on the Pledge of America Facebook page. "The new Republican majority has...