Barnes & Noble said today it would offer free wireless Internet access at all its bookstores nationwide.
Barnes & Noble has offered Wi-Fi access via AT&T since 2005, but that was a subscription-based service. Customers shopping in the bookstore will now be able to preview over 700,000 eBook titles along with thousands of public domain titles available from Google, on their Wi-Fi enabled devices. The company says its number of eBook titles is on track to reach the one million mark soon.
AT&T Combines Facebook, Twitter, MySpace in New App
AT&T has launched a new social networking app, which combines access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and customizable news feeds. It’s called the AT&T Social Net App, and it’s available as a free download.
Google Voice Completely Banned From Apple’s App Store
UPDATE: There is a Twitition floating around asking "Apple to unblock Google Voice App".
If you wish to sign it, go here.
Majority Find Online Health Information Reliable
The number of people looking for health information online has reached 154 million, representing 67 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to a new poll from Harris Interactive.
The majority (83%) of people looking for health information online indicate their search was successful and almost half (45%) say it was "very successful."
An even larger majority (87%) believes that this information was reliable, but only 28 percent said it was "very reliable."
Google Provides Tool for Speeding Up Web Pages
Last month Google spoke about an initiative it was kicking off to call upon webmasters to help make the web faster. Larry Page once said he envisioned a web that could be surfed as easily as flipping through the pages of a magazine. This initiative is kind of an extension of that way of thinking.
Yahoo Provides Means for “Easy” Mobile Site Creation
Earlier this year Yahoo announced that the Yahoo Blueprint Platform was being extended from several hundred mobile devices in several thousand. Now the company has opened it up to third party developers.
The BluePrint is a platform on which developers can create mobile websites. It uses simple XML, and is the same technology Yahoo used to build oneSearch and the Yahoo.com mobile home page.
Reasons to Use Bing for Reference?
Microsoft says that reference search sessions average over 9 minutes in length and over 6 queries per session before the user finds what they are looking for. With that in mind, the company is highlighting how Bing handles reference material.
There is clearly great emphasis placed on Wikipedia results, and I have to admit that as I began to read Microsoft’s explanation, I was starting to think, "Why not just cut out the middle man and search Wikipedia?"
The company says things like:
The News Goes 3D on YouTube
Last week, we took a look at YouTube’s testing of 3D videos after a thread was spotted in the YouTube Help Center where an employee was discussing the concept. This was part of his "20%" time.
Twitter Phasing Out The Term Updates In Favor Of Tweets
Twitter has changed the word "updates" to "tweets" on user profiles. Though the change seems insignificant, it’s the first time the famed microblogging site has used the term "tweet" on their site.
Google Analytics Gets Event Tracking Advanced Segments
Google announced today that users tracking events on their site using Google Analytics can now define advanced segments to isolate event-related sites. The company points to an example of looking at how visits with events compares to visits overall.