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Archive for December, 2007

Marketing mess-ups II: Microsoft’s foul-mouthed chatbot

A chat bot created by Microsoft for MSN Messenger users has been withdrawn after starting to talk back all filthy-like to children. The bot was intended to let kids have a chat with Santa about what they wanted for Christmas and whether or not they’d been good boys or girls. However, discussing the subject of pizza caused the bot to bring up oral sex.

Posted December 18, 2007 5:10 pm by Alex Horner 0 Comments

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BBC Beta launches

The new BBC Beta homepage reminds us a lot of personalised homepages from the likes of Netvibes and Pageflakes. Customise the content, drag around the boxes. This is of

Posted December 17, 2007 6:13 pm by Alex Horner 0 Comments

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Google does a Digg

The founder of Wikipedia talked about doing something similar a while back but the latest addition to Google Labs is a Digg-style rating system for search results. Think the 4th result down is actually the most relevant? Click on the little up arrow next to it and push it up where it belongs (and give it a little orange star in the process). Irrelevant result? Click the cross to banish it from view. Great idea but we’re left wondering how they’ll protect this from viral companies who’ve become so adept at exploiting Digg and other rating systems such as that found on YouTube.

Posted December 3, 2007 6:11 pm by Alex Horner 0 Comments

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Google knows where you are without GPS

Genius. Watch the video above for an explanation. We’ve just tried it and it’s scarily accurate. Now all we need to do is have a function to keep tabs on other people’s locations too. Those ‘i’m stuck at the station darling’ excuses will soon be a thing of the past.

Posted December 3, 2007 4:23 pm by Alex Horner 0 Comments

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Facebook rethinks their Beacon ad program

Facebook’s Beacon allowed people’s activity on sites such as Blockbuster or Overstock to be published into Facebook newsfeeds. So for example, if you were to purchase a lovely new desk chair, your pals would receive a notification letting them know what you’d been up to. The only problem was, the opt-outs weren’t very clear meaning a large number of people have been inadvertantly revealing christmas purchases to their loved ones. Suddenly that surprise 3 piece suite isn’t such a surprise anymore. A petition hosted on a Facebook group with in excess of 50,000 signatures later and the system has been revamped to make submission of information far more explicit.

Posted December 3, 2007 11:23 am by Alex Horner 0 Comments

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