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New Media News Every Morning

Gravity Forms: Contact Forms on Steroids

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Gravity Forms is truly the most revolutionary plugin on WordPress IMO. It does multiple things that I wish WordPress Core had built in. Form Management to create a user generated content site, to customer relationship management, to a user generated job board. The possiblities are ENDLESS.

gravity forms

RocketGenius recently released their 1.2 Version of Gravity Forms

We are happy to release Gravity Forms v1.2! This is an exciting release that adds some new, exciting and very powerful features to the mix. Developers will love the data integration capabilities and novice users will love the new features that makes managing forms even more powerful.

I’m a big WordPress nut and this is truly one of the most exciting developments to hit WordPress imo since the creation of the Thesis Theme for WordPress. On the outside and inside this looks like a solid product that you could build some solid sites on.

Telegraph gets it all wrong about Twitter Video

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Telegraph published a bogus report today about Twitter coming out with video. Mashable did the fact checking on it and found out that sure enough in line video is not even in the philosophical premise of Twitter.

twitter

“That said, Twitter does lose out when it comes to multimedia: adding in-line thumbnails for images and videos (even if that content is hosted on 3rd party sites) would make for a much richer experience that could match Facebook’s news feed for image and video sharing. Yes, in-line multimedia can be done with apps like TweetDeck, but that’s non-obvious and an extra step for those more familiar with the leading social network. Even this could bring Twitter into conflict with developers however: if multimedia support were added, would there be default services in the same way Bit.ly is the default URL shortener?”

While I think Twitter could be a bit cleaner, and integrate inline multimedia. If you haven’t taken a look at Yahoo Meme! you really should it’s very clean and smooth and just recently rolled out English language support.

This is what I wish a Twitter 2.0 would really look like.

Vimeo Announces New Tools

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Video Hosting and Publishing is still a large growth sector. Vimeo is one of the major players that I’ve liked for a long time. They are getting ready to roll out some major new tools that will really help make their platform attractive to new users, and existing publishers.

Vimeo Logo

1 Desktop Uploader
I don’t understand why other video hosting platforms namely YouTube doesn’t have a desktop application to allow you to upload videos straight from an application that you can control.

2 Better Stats
Youtube doesn’t provide you with any stats other than what’s publicly available that’s one thing I’ve heard about Vimeo. Publishers like having control, and they like being able to view detailed statistics.

3 Larger Videos
People like BIG. Vimeo gets it on the Big Scale their videos are HUGE. 640×480 Gotta love that.

4 Featured Groups
Vimeo’s featured groups remind me of Flickr groups did before Yahoo bought them. Vimeo is smart, the groups brings community to the forefront and that’s where the important growth is.

Google Voice Being Targeted for FCC Investigation

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The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it is set to investigate whether Google has violated telecommunications laws via its Google Voice App refuses to connect to some rural connection points.

Google Voice

In a letter sent to Google on Friday afternoon, the FCC requested that Google explain how its application, Google Voice, works and why it is blocking some rural connection points.

Critics say if the agency determines that the service is a traditional telephone service than it will be regulated as one. If it’s not deemed to be a traditional telephony service than it’s unlikely the FCC will be able to do anything.

Google’s lead attorney on this issue is Rick Whitt, and argued that the service is not a traditional phone service because it is free and is an Internet application. He said some calls denied service to rural areas because of high costs of making those connections.

Source: Brainz

Angels Want Startups To Pay To Pitch

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Jason Calacanis get’s it right when he says that Angels shouldn’t be asking Startups for cash for the time to pitch to them. First off Angels have the cash, and the time to listen to startups, and if they don’t have the time they shouldn’t ask startups to pay.

jason calacanis

Jason Calacanis says it a lot better than I can, and in a rare moment I really agree with him on this.

I’ve been in the startup scene since 1994 and in those 15 years I’ve met, interviewed — and in some cases, pitched — the most powerful investors in technology. None of them have ever charged me a dime for doing so.
Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH!

It’s low-class, inappropriate and predatory for a rich person to ask an entrepreneur to PAY THEM for 15 minutes of their time. Seriously, what is the cost to the party hearing the pitch? If you answered “nothing” or “the cost of two cups of coffee” you win the prize!