Hollywood in a bidding war over Voltron movie
Relativity Media and Atlas Entertainment are both vying for the rights to produce the upcoming live-action CGI Voltron movie.
What I’m Reading
Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.
Social ranking tool PeerIndex introduces its most requested feature…Groups [Exclusive]
Algorithmic social ranking service PeerIndex has introduced one its most highly requested features today, debuting PeerIndex Groups – a new way to track and view the social rankings of groups of people – friends, enemies or competitors en-masse.
PeerIndex already examines social activity across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and Q&A site Quora, evaluating a users’ “online social capital” based on the activity of the individual across their various social platforms.
With PeerIndex Groups, users are able to create and organise their friends into one easy to view list, ranking them by their PeerIndex rating. Their Authority, Activity and Audience are listed, allowing a user to view the individual elements of an individuals PeerIndex score.
The image below shows the team here at The Next Web:
Groups created on PeerIndex aren’t limited to just your friends, they also allow conference organisers to set up a list of attendees at their events, also giving community creators to gather and group members of their community and track them.
It also provides a platform for business owners or media publications to keep an eye on how their competitors rank on the service, providing an insight into what a user could do to emulate their rivals.
Adding A Group
Adding a group is easy. Users need to navigate to their PeerIndex Dashboard, where a new My Groups option will be available:
Once you have named your Group, you need to fill it with the people you want to track or group together. As a test, I grouped a a few of my Mobile-specific followers, manually entering their usernames (which are auto-listed). Alternatively, you can add a Twitter List, taking a lot of the hassle out of adding members.
The group can be listed publicly or you can choose to keep it private and up to 50 users can be added to each individual group.
DISQUS comments are embedded below each group, perfect for events where attendees may want to interact before it commences.
PeerIndex was founded in 2009 by Azeem Azhar, an Internet entrepreneur and investor who previously worked at the Guardian; Bill Emmott, former editor-in-chief of The Economist; and Ditlev Schwanenflugel, formerly of McKinsey & Co. The company has received financial backing from prominent technology investors who have invested in companies including Last.fm, Lovefilm and Zoopla.Image Credit
$9 Million Program Gives Students Wireless Internet Access At Home, Not Just At School
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is set to unveil a $9 million pilot program aimed at making sure students have access to mobile broadband not just when they’re in the classroom, but when they leave for home.
At an event in New York City today, Genachowski will announce a list of 20 schools and libraries that the FCC plans to connect to the wireless Internet so that students can use Internet-ready devices on and off school campuses.
Sponsor
The “Learning On-the-Go” program that will test how E-rate, the FCC’s education funding program, can provide students with mobile Internet access. While the mandate of E-rate is to provide schools and libraries with Internet access, traditionally the funds have paid for “wired” and desktop – not wireless and mobile – technologies.
This new FCC effort coincides with the Obama Administration’s National Broadband Plan that aims to boost the country’s mobile broadband access overall and with its National Education Technology Plan that proposes that every student and teacher have access to an Internet-enabled device.
These efforts recognize the increasing importance of mobile and online learning, and those students without access at home to these technologies or the Internet are at a major educational disadvantage.
The “Learning On-the-Go” program will be piloted in 14 states and will fund wireless broadband for ten laptop programs, two virtual schools, three handheld device programs, and five technology programs. One program in New Orleans will give third through sixth graders access to wireless data cards, for example.
Microsoft confirms Internet Explorer 9 will launch on March 14th
We had a hint that Microsoft would be releasing the final version of Internet Explorer 9 on March 14th, and now the company has finally, officially confirmed it. That launch will coincide with a press event / party at SXSW, and downloads will be available starting at 9PM Pacific time (or midnight Eastern time). Wondering what’s in store? Then you can always check out our review of the beta version, or simply download it yourself, of course — suffice it to say, it’s no Internet Explorer 6.
Microsoft confirms Internet Explorer 9 will launch on March 14th originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Don’t Abandon Your Website Just Yet
A survey shows that 70 percent of small businesses intend to take up social media over the coming year, but should that be at the expense of the traditional Website?
