But while that’s definitely true, it’s also not quite the full story. In the U.S., though copyright is granted in a work the moment its fixed into a tangible medium of expression, one does not have all of the tools needed to enforce that copyright until they take an additional step.
That additional step is timely registration with the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) and for many bloggers, both in the U.S. and abroad, it’s a both a good idea and an important step you can take to protect your work.
iPhone and iPad users on Thursday were treated to the newest release of Foursquare and with that app release comes a brand new feature called Radar.
Radar works by allowing users to check-in at locations and then receive information about other hot spots they might want to try. For example Foursquare gives the example of following the list “2001 best dishes and drinks” at which point checking in at one of that lists locations will provide you with information about other spots in the area you might want to try.
The Radar system also provides users with ability to receive notifications when their friends are in the same area. read more
Google on Wednesday announced that the Google+ social network wants to be like Twitter, more specifically the company rolled out hashtag support which provides access to Google searches. The company also announced that real-time searches can now be conducted through the Google+ platform.
Vic Gundotra, Google’s SVP of social, explained in a post:
“Now when you search in Google+, you’ll see a message about new posts the instant they’re available,” while adding, “If you click on this message, or select ‘Most recent,’ then relevant posts will start appearing in real-time.”
When hashtags are used they automatically link to search results for the terms which might make “Imhavingareallybaddaytoday” seem irrelevant while popular terms such as #iPHone4S will yield the type of results people want. Thankfully Google is capable of breaking up strings of characters into search terms which means #iPhone4STroubleshooting” displays on Google.com search results as “iPhone 4S Troubleshooting” without users having to break up strings into separate words. read more
Crowd-based funding platform Kickstarter announced on Tuesday that more than 1 million people have donated $100 million to help fund various projects.
Kickstarter works by allows users to post projects that need funding while asking Kickstarter community members to help fund their project with special offers for their products.
In just under two-and-a-half years the $100 million milestone is great news for Kickstarter however the last five months have been the most impressive with 400,000 new “backers” for the website. Kickstarter considers anyone who puts down a credit card number or pledges money to be a backer.
With their milestone achievement Kickstarter also announced some interesting statistics, for example approximately 16% (166,823 people) have backed multiple projects while 23,601 users have backed five or more projects. read more
YouTube Space Lab is currently accepting submissions from students ages 14 to 18 for a new program that will send their science experiments into space to be tested by NASA and European Space Agency astronauts.
The two winners will be hand selected by world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking along with a team of judges from NASA, the European Space Agency and Cirque du Soleil.
Once launched into space aboard a Japanese rocket the experiments will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) where they will be tested and those experiments will be broadcast live on YouTube.
The contest is open to students around the world and entries are being accepted until December 7. In order to qualify each contestant must submit a two-minute video explaining their science idea which must be posted on the YouTube Space Lab page. read more
If you’ve been thinking about giving music service Rdio a try but don’t want to pay the $4.99 per month desktop fee or the $9.99 fee for unlimited desktop and mobile access then you’re in luck. Rdio has begun rolling out a free 7-day trial offer to anyone who syncs their Facebook account to the platform.
Before users jump in there are few things users need to know however before moving forward:
1. Streaming full songs is only available through the desktop web interface during the trial, while the Rdio iOS app will simply play 30 second song previews. read more
Most sites don’t try to break the law. Only a few actively make an effort to violate any kind of law and most of those are generally shut down fairly quickly, either by aggressive hosts or, in worst-case scenarios, law enforcement.
But this doesn’t mean everyone is perfect either. Most sites, at the very least, bend the law and sometimes outright break it.
This isn’t because they are run by bad people but because of the nature of the law itself. Sometimes it’s poorly-written law that is almost impossible to not break (at least technically) and sometimes it’s lack of knowledge about the law itself.
So what are some of the ways you’re probably breaking the law online? There are too many to choose from but here are five you should definitely take a look at. read more
Even though email and IM are still the two important communication channels, social media channels are rapidly increasing for our communication and we are dedicating more and more of our time online to social media.
Infographiclabs have collected and visualised the most recent data on Social Media usage in infographic below, enjoy!
Hootsuite on Thursday announced the integration of LinkedIn Company Pages and Groups to their social media management platform.
The previous version of Hootsuite only offered access to a users main LinkedIn profile.
Using the new Hootsuite feature LinkedIn users can send company status updates and even start group discussions directly from inside the Hootsuite product. read more
From the outside looking in Twitter appears to be doing great, 400 million people use the site on a monthly basis and they recently raised $800 million, that’s why it was surprising to learn that a major investor has unloaded a large portion of their shares.
According to the investor:
“I like the guys at Twitter. They’re still pushing ahead on acquisitions and business development,” while adding, “But the problem internally at Twitter is that it is going through major growing pains.”
While growing pains are normal at rapidly growing company the investor says:
“There’s the question, do I focus on users, or do I focus on business?…And the thing that falls to the wayside is internal management. A lot of people [at Twitter] don’t know who they report to; they don’t understand who’s responsible for certain deals. That’s the stuff that ultimately makes companies crumble from the inside.” read more
If you’ve been reading my column here on the Blog Herald, then you already know that copyright is placed into a work the moment that it is created. This means that you don’t need to do anything at all in order to ensure that your work is protected and that others who misuse it are breaking the law.
Most sites don’t try to break the law. Only a few actively make an effort to violate any kind of law and most of those are generally shut down fairly quickly, either by aggressive hosts or, in worst-case scenarios, law enforcement.
