Archive for the ‘Privacy’ Category

« Older Entries

New Ping.it release taps into “dark social”

December 3rd, 2012 Posted by Chris 0 Comments

We’re back online!

The maintenance that started shortly after the Dublin Web Summit lasted a bit longer than expected, but I guess it will be easy to see why, after you’ve discovered how much we improved in Ping.it.

But first, a little story.

Did you know that nearly 66% of all content sharing happens directly, bypassing social networks? They call this vast area of direct link exchange the Dark Social – a term that has been popularized recently by this article from The Atlantic.

What exactly does Dark Social consist of?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Design and Layout, Internet Trends, Privacy, Releases, Technology, Working at Ping.it |

Alpha Test Update: Introducing “pings”

June 18th, 2012 Posted by Chris 3 Comments

Recently, in preparation for our final alpha launch, we began to wonder if  there was anything more we could do to make StormDriver better. To make it more unique, rewarding – and simpler at the same time.

After some talking, thinking, and even more talking, we finally understood what lies at the heart of our system, when you trim away all the subpages, functions, options and buttons. It’s the instant discovery sharing – the ability to see when someone, somewhere, somehow discovers something cool you didn’t know of.

We wanted to make this core idea more visible throughout the system. To bring it into the light.

Just imagine tens of thousands of users browsing the Web at the same time. And imagine, that every time any one of them stumbles upon something valuable, he or she sends a strong signal, a loud “ping” that means “eureka!” or “I found it” or, to be more precise, “it’s awesome here, come and join me”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Design and Layout, Privacy, Releases, Social Browsing, Technology, Working at Ping.it |

StormDriver Alpha Launch Information Pack

November 11th, 2011 Posted by Chris 4 Comments

It’s 11/11/2011, almost 11:11 GMT. Time for something special to happen.

You might have seen a mysterious teaser that was circling around the web in the last few days. A teaser that gathered over 100.000 views, and received coverage from major publication all around the world, including Mashable. It was our trailer, heralding an event that happens today, this very minute.

A launch of our aticipated StormDriver Alpha test!

Yes, it took us some time – actually a lot more than we have expected. The system we’re working on is quite unique, so it offered us challenges we never faced before. All the time we were treading on pioneering grounds. Some bits of our technology are patent pending as of this week, so let me assure you – it was not easy to roll out first public version.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Design and Layout, Internet Trends, Privacy, Releases, Social Browsing, Technology, Uncategorized, Working at Ping.it |

StormDriver Cookbook

November 10th, 2011 Posted by jan 5 Comments

Our series of StormDriver previews turned out to be quite popular, especially the first part that started off by giving our readers a first person perspective walk through the system. After all, nothing can showcase a piece of software better than some inspiring examples of things that can be done with its help. That’s why I wanted to give you some more interesting user scenarios.

You can call this a StormDriver Cookbook, prepared especially for our new users. StormDriver may feel daunting at first, so I created a couple of ready recipes that you can try out as soon as you get in. See how you like them, and then experiment to your heart’s content!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Design and Layout, Internet Trends, Privacy, Releases, Social Browsing, Technology, Uncategorized |

StormDriver Cookbook, Part Two

November 10th, 2011 Posted by Chris 2 Comments

There are several thousand potato dishes known worldwide.

Before you start to wonder why am I going into this culinary metaphor, just think about it:   something as simple as a lump of starch and protein can be used in so many ways! What about really complex items? What about truly versatile things, like StormDriver? This one silly potato trivia made me think, that my recent StormDriver Cookbook simply isn’t enough. That’s why I talked to some other guys in our team, in order to check how they would use our platform, and what they would recommend to our users.  Now, I’m coming back with some more real-life examples.

And because right now we’re having a series of planning brainstorms, it’s probably not the last cookbook you’ll see on our pages. So sit back, turn on your imagination, and check some more cool ways to use the StormDriver. I hope our ideas will inspire you to try it out personally.

Because StormDriver, just like potatoes, can be used in many, many ways.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Internet Trends, Privacy, Security, Social Browsing, Technology, Uncategorized, Working at Ping.it |

StormDriver Alpha: Second Preview

November 10th, 2011 Posted by Chris 37 Comments

It seems that the exclusive sneak peak of StormDriver, we gave our readers two weeks ago, sparked some interest. We received a couple of questions about the system and we gladly answered all of them, as we’re prepared to do in the future. It seems some people are actually anxious to get their hands on this precious alpha build, and we’re really pleased about that.

As it stands now, the public alpha is planned sometime in mid-July. Don’t hold me accountable for this promise, though. It’s always been quality before deadlines in our team. We don’t want you to be disappointed, even with the first, rough build. And while you wait, this column can provide you with an in-depth look at various parts of our system. It’s the second of our Alpha articles, and I can promise you it’s not the last one.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About Ping.it, Content Discovery, Design and Layout, Privacy, Releases, Security, Social Browsing, Technology, Uncategorized, Working at Ping.it |

Prismatic personality – a fresh concept for social networks?

October 21st, 2011 Posted by Chris 1 Comment

Publicity that followed the recent death of Steve Jobs proved who the true heroes of our age are. In last two decades, famous developers and IT inventors started to get the attention equal to pop stars and politicians. And all of those internet icons fall roughly in two categories. We have successful entrepreneurs and businessmen like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page or Bill Gates. And then we have some shady figures, the swashbucklers and buccaneers of the digital age, people like Julian Assange or Kevin Mitnick.

One of the messiahs of this underground web is a quiet New York student, Chris Poole, also known as “moot”. In 2003, being just 15 years old, he programmed a simple website that with zero marketing and one-man development grew to 18 million unique monthly users in less than ten years. I’d give you a link, but you would click it immediately and then you’d go back to complain about inappropriate content you found there. Because Poole’s invention is an anonymous, uncensored, and (almost) unmoderated image board called 4chan.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Collective Intelligence, Content Discovery, Internet Trends, Privacy, Security, Social Browsing, Technology, Uncategorized |

A brief history of the pixel trade

April 21st, 2011 Posted by Chris 1 Comment

It all started not so long ago, when one geek sold his MUD account to the other. Today, virtual economies are much larger than those of many countries – in 2010 people worldwide spent $7 billion real dollars buying pixels of various shapes and sizes. That’s more than GDP of Mongolia, Malta or Haiti.  And some of those pixels are really expensive. The highest amount paid for a virtual item is currently $635,000 dollars – that’s how much an anonymous person paid for the virtual night club on a virtual planet in massively multiplayer Entropia Universe game. I wonder if he got some virtual booze and virtual strippers to sweeten the deal?

There are professional pixel-investors, shady pixel brokers, there are sweatshops of people farming pixels in various games, there are players who devote their whole lives to having more pixels of certain shape and color than anyone else in the world. We have gone on a pixel feeding frenzy. New economies are popping out left and right, and virtual currencies of several imaginary worlds are easier to exchange for a dollar than those of many African countries.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Games, Internet Trends, Privacy, Technology, Uncategorized |

The Gray Zone

April 14th, 2011 Posted by Chris 0 Comments

The largest data theft in the US history. The highest sentence ever passed for a computer crime. Secret Service. Torture and treachery. Julian Assange’s faint shadow. This story has it all.

It starts with Albert Gonzalez, mastermind of a hacking group that stole almost 90 million credit card numbers in the famous TJX heist. In 2008, he was busted and found guilty of all charges. Then, he did an obvious thing for someone who’s going to stay behind the bars until 2025. He wrote a long petition, claiming he’s innocent.

His defense is so crazy it might just be true. The TJX hacker believed he is actually working for the US government. No, he’s not the tinfoil hat kind of guy – we know that he had a contact with a government agency. In 2003 he was arrested and forced to cooperate with Secret Service. Over the next years, he helped agents to infiltrate the hacking community – he committed many computer related crimes during covert operations, with full approval of his superiors.  He was still an active informant in 2005, when the TJX crime took place. Apparently, the agency forgot to notify him that his hacking carte blanche does not apply to this particular action.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Internet Trends, Privacy, Security, Technology |

Start-ups in the maze of software patents

March 28th, 2011 Posted by Chris 27 Comments

Have you ever thought about patenting a pop up note,  an online poll, a leaderboard in an online game, or a system where you open apps by clicking icons? I have some bad news for you – it’s impossible. Not because the claim is stupid, it’s just that all of those things are already patented (take a look here, here, here, or here).

And it’s all fun and factoids, until one day you find yourself in the role of a software start-up, looking down the long black tunnel of software patenting, leading from Happy Town to Reality Check Station in Breakdown City.

Start-up woes

Debates about the software patenting system come and go, sometimes ramping up in a brief controversy, when two giants battle it out in public, throwing patents in each other’s faces. Films are being made (you really have to check this one out), articles are being written, and the internet public learned to treat the software patent debate like something constant, similar to the internet browser race, or regular hardware releases. Seemingly, nothing changes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Internet Trends, Privacy, Technology, Uncategorized |

« Older Entries