Last time we checked in on London startup Rummble, things were in a state of flux. We broke the news that the company was changing direction and today it is set to officially launch its new product: Rummble Labs.
Rummble Labs is targeting a wide range of businesses with recommendation technology that can slot into their products, saving them from having to “reinvent the wheel” by building it themselves.
Rummble Labs can track purchases, reviews, ratings, postings, check-ins, “likes” and comments and use this data to create a complete “trust graph”. This graph, comparing users’ tastes and preferences, can then deliver relevant data and recommendations.
Rummble Labs takes the form of an adaptable API that can scale to process large volumes of data and the company is talking about this technology powering “The Age of Relevance” on the Internet. As we’ve previously noted, the startup’s underlying technology always seemed like its biggest asset and this change of direction to becoming a B2B platform play makes sense in a crowded consumer market.
Rummble is currently in Austin, Texas as part of UK Trade & Investment’s Mission to SXSWi, which invited 31 UK digital companies to the digital festival.
You can dig into the full details about Rummble Labs here.
Hospital worker Stephen Andreassen has become the first person in the Britain to be jailed for using his blog to stalk a woman after she ended a four-week relationship with him, reports The Telegraph.
Rebecca Pattinson entered a relationship with Andreassen in 2006, three years after they met, when she went to see him perform on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of Antony Gormley’s “One or Other” exhibition. The relationship ended just four weeks later when Andreassen began asking Pattinson to move in with him.
As a result, Andreassen started to harass his ex-girlfriend with calls, emails and text messages, taking to Facebook to beg to be taken back.
When Miss Pattinson started to lock down her social networking accounts and threaten to call the Police, Andreassen started to submit blog posts “warning all men” about her – 35 in total – adding links to other websites that detailed their relationship.
His actions landed him with a lifetime restraining order from mentioning Miss Pattinson in further posts, avoiding jail, after he admitted harassment claims.
Two months later, he was arrested for posting a new entry on his blog, calling his ex-girlfriend a “liar” and a “sociopath”. At Manchester magistrates’ court, Andreassen was sentenced to 18 weeks in jail for breaking a restraining order. He has also been sacked by Manchester Royal Infirmary.Image Credit
Profound as it may be, the Internet revolution still pales in comparison to that earlier revolution that first brought screens in millions of homes: the TV revolution. Americans still spend more of their non-sleep, non-work time on watching TV than on any other activity. And now the immovable object (the couch potato) and the irresistible force (the business-model destroying Internet) are colliding.
Despite strict bandwidth caps and pricey usage-based billing, Canadians are using the Internet more than any other country, according to new data from comScore.
Back in December we reported that Canadians were smoking the rest of the world on YouTube hits, visiting the site over 21 million times every month. We also noted that Facebook had penetrated over 51% of the Canadian population based on Socialbakers’ Facebook statistics. Now, Canadians are taking the lead in web activity, spending more time on the web and visiting more websites per month than any other place on earth.
Canucks like to think they’re a progressive bunch and the comScore data validates and confirms the truth– the Great White North is almost doubling the worldwide average in Internet usage per month. Canada has a truly digital culture.
The comScore report highlights that Canadians are spending an average of 43.5 hours a month surfing the web, exceeding the worldwide average of 23.1 hours. It also states that the number of unique online visitors in Canada hit approximately 23 million users in the fourth quarter of 2010. Pretty good for a population of just over 34 million.
Aside from the explosion of smartphones making the Internet readily available, Canadians 55 years + are engaging the web more often. It’s a demographic that has increased by 12 percent between late 2009 and 2010. We should also note that there was a slight decline in other demographics — even within the Zuckerberg-generation.
In the report, Ontario lead the other provinces capturing 38 percent of total usage. Country wide, males and females were equally ranked in time spent online however, the type of sites accessed varied. From December 2009 to December 2010 blogs and social networking also increased by 9 and 13 percent.
More women were accessing Food, Beauty/Fashion/Style and Health sites in Q4 2010, while men were drawn to Humor, Incentives and Movie sites.
Out of the 11 countries researched, Canada additionally ranked #1 in website visits, coming in at 95.2 sites visited per month. Although Canada lost to South Korea on page views, on average Canadians are viewing 3,349 pages per month, 1216 more than the worldwide total.
Canadians are spending the majority of time using directory sites like Google and surfing technology and newspaper sites. It’s also mentioned that there has been a shift in activity within political news websites which saw a 47 per cent increase.
More Canadians were accessing Community and Entertainment sites in Q4 2010. Political News sites saw the strongest growth, up 47 percent versus year ago.
It’s interesting to hear these numbers considering the frequent complaining we hear from Canadians on the web regarding the cost of Internet usage (myself included) — we’re obviously not ready to curb our fierce appetite for the web just yet. The report featuring 11 countries including the U.S., Germany and UK can be accessed at comScore.
MIT Media Labs has a new logo, designed by Richard The, with a whopping 40,000 possible variations.
On his website, The explains that an algorithm is used to produce the logos based on just three shapes and 12 different colors. The algorithm produces a logo for each staff member at the Labs, combining personal branding with organizational branding. Despite the unique nature of each logo, they are clearly related. According to the designer, the logo’s varying nature represents what MIT Media Labs does:
Each of the three shapes stands for one individual’s contribution, the resulting shape represents the outcome of this process: A constant redefinition of what media and technology means today.
Below, you can see just a few of the 40,000 variations.
These dynamic identities are becoming more commonplace, and many are wondering how effective a mark that changes is for brand development. I asked Duane Kinsey of Logobird, a design studio that specializes in logo design and brand development, whether he thought MIT Media Labs’ new brand would suffer due to its changing nature.
I think the same basic rules apply across all identities — it doesn’t matter whether it is static or dynamic. Behind every successful identity design you need a well conceived concept. Without one, it will most likely be doomed for failure. So yes, a dynamic identity can hinder an organisations ability to build a brand, but the same can be applied to static identities.
In the case of the MIT Media Labs logo, I think it’s very unique — perhaps redefining what is possible with regards to adaptability for a brandmark. The fact that an algorithm can produce 40,000 variations of the logo in 12 different colours is very novel. The ability for employees to lay claim to their own personal piece of the identity via a custom web interface — now that is what I call innovation.
Overall, it appears to be a very cohesive and well excecuted dynamic identity system. However, only time will tell if it will be a success.
I’ve got to agree with Duane. Here you can see a bunch of business cards bearing their owners’ unique marks. While they’re all distinctly different, there’s no confusing the source.
