The ever popular PopoPlug hard drive sharing device manufactured by Cloud Engines Inc. has finally been given a much needed upgrade and the all new PopoPlug now sports the support for upto four simultaneous USB hard drives, that can now be attached to the device and their contents can then be shared on the web.

The all new PopoPlug device is available for $129 and entails no service fee and keeping in tune to the social networking revolution, it also has integrated Twitter and Facebook services. This new device sporting four USB hard drives enables users to share their media files on the PopoPlug website and can even broadcast their files on Apple iPhone.

PopoPlug hard drive sharing device has also been given a complete facelift, with a new vibrant pink colored casing and still operates on the traditional Ethernet mode of connectivity for internet access. The new upgraded model also features a newly introduced drag and drop feature, along with multimedia slide shows that, significantly enhance use experience, especially when it comes to multimedia files. The files on your computers can now directly be synchronized with the PopoPlug device via tools like iTunes, Windows Media Player, and iPhoto.

Here is an excerpt from the the press release for PopoPlug:

San Francisco, Calif. – November 20, 2009 – Cloud Engines, Inc. unveiled the second generation of the award winning Pogoplug multimedia sharing device today giving consumers more flexibility to store personal content safely in the home and access, manage, and share it from anywhere on the Internet. The new Pogoplug hardware sports a new design boasting multiple USB ports supporting up to 4 external drives for expanded data capacity. The new Pogoplug also gives users improved sharing capabilities, an easy drag-and-drop interface to create engaging multi-media slide shows, seamless media playback, and enhanced sharing with friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Pogoplug acts like a gateway from your home or office through the Internet. It allows you to access, share and even stream your personal digital media directly to anybody, anywhere in the world. Your content always remains physically in your home or office, making it secure, convenient and available on your terms. Pogoplug is perfect for those individuals with increasingly mobile lifestyles and small businesses in need of simple, inexpensive mobile data access solutions.

“The reaction to the Pogoplug has been incredible. By listening to user feedback and following our own product roadmap, we are bringing a great second-generation product that gives our customers access to a host of new features that both improve the function of the Pogoplug, and add to the fun of using it as well.” said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Cloud Engines, Inc. “We are committed to giving our customers the best way to access their data from anywhere in the world, pushing the envelope with both product quality and design aesthetic. The result is what you see here today.”

NEW HARDWARE

The new Pogoplug design retains the simplicity and ease of use of the original while listening to consumer feedback and adding the ability to directly connect up to 4 external hard drives at once. The resulting product boasts an improved design with greatly improved functionality for users with multiple drives and an increasing need for easy synching and sharing of their digital libraries. This upgrade turns the Pogoplug into an even more prominent feature in the modern digital home or small business.

NEW FEATURES

Automatically Synchronize Photos, Videos, Music and Other Selected Content

Users can synchronize their Pogoplug with their PC or Mac to automatically import new content from popular applications such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, and iPhoto. This feature allows Pogoplug owners to “set it and forget it” and always have access to new photos, videos and music from anywhere on the Internet.

Drag-and-Drop Music and Photo Slideshows

Users can easily create and share fun and engaging slideshows using their stored photos, videos and music. Creating a slideshow with Pogoplug is as simple as drag and drop, and sharing these slideshows is just as easy as ever. Once a user’s link is shared and viewed, their slideshow will immediately begin with the photos, videos and music they selected, playing seamlessly in the viewer’s browser.

Easier Sharing with Pogoplug Address Book

Pogoplug Address Book greatly improves the speed and ease of use of sharing with a user’s friends and family. Pogoplug automatically remembers all email addresses entered in a user’s previous shares – even if that share no longer exists – and makes them available in an easy to use address book to make sharing truly one click away.

Global Search Across Multiple Drives and Pogoplugs

With support for multiple drives on a single Pogoplug (and multiple Pogoplugs on the same account) Pogoplug has added “global” search support across all of a user’s Pogoplugs and drives. Search filters are now a distinct feature, allowing users to view all of their photos, videos and music in a single organized view, or to search for a specific file across all Pogoplugs and drives.

Organize Your Music, Photos and Videos

Pogoplug automatically displays music by Album, Artist and Genre, and shows cover art for quick access to a user’s favorite music. Photos are now displayed by photo timeline and videos are only a click away, including the ability to watch a preview in the thumbnail itself.

Play movies directly from my.pogoplug.com, or even to the iPhone

Pogoplug now supports the playback of videos directly from a Pogoplug, with support for the most popular cameras, video cameras and mobile phones. Movies can be shared and viewed directly from the Pogoplug website – or even from an iPhone!

Pricing and Availability

We are currently taking Pre-Orders for Pogoplug at www.pogoplug.com Units will ship before the end of the year – just in time for the Holiday Season. The Pogoplug has a suggested retail price of $129, with no additional service fees.

Via Crunch Gear & PopoPlug.

For a long time now, Yahoo! Inc has been experiencing a significant slump as far as the usage of its search engine, Yahoo! Search is concerned. Users worldwide have become more inclined towards Google and Microsoft’s Bing search engines and reduced the usage of Yahoo! drastically.

In an effort to revive the importance of its search engine, Yahoo! has reportedly gotten into a deal with the micro blogging sensation in which, Yahoo! will now be fetching important tweets and information from the micro blogging website and incorporate them into Yahoo! Search. Even though Microsoft’ and Google have already made sub deals with Twitter, Yahoo will be the very first service to show tweets into the search engine.

Yahoo! plans to show tweets from Twitter that revolve around important information and events. Whenever a search string is keyed in Yahoo! search regarding a specific topic or a news event, Yahoo! will display fur unique tabs for the query, each one will be dedicated towards links to news sites, one tab for images, one tab for video and the last tab will specifically display tweets from Twitter.

The Twitter tab in Yahoo! search will display the information from Twitter pages of some of the most respected media outlets, such as, CNN and Associated Press and will also the users tweets that might be directing towards an interesting or breaking news. The deal between Yahoo! and Twitter has reportedly been devoid of any financial compensations and Yahoo! will be employing the free tools at its disposal to include Twitter in its search results.

Via Digital Trends.

One of the most reputed news aggregations on the internet, Techmeme has announced the expansion of its staff with the addition of three new editors to its roll call. The new team of editors, Lidija Davis from ReadWriteWeb, Mahendra Palsule, a former IT Project Manger and Rich DeMuro of Cnet have all joined the Techmeme staff and brought along years of experience and expertise in the field of information and technology.

The founder of Techmeme, Gabe Rivera, is reportedly extremely happy with the latest acquisitions because, with the three new editors in the organization, there is now more manpower that will have the responsibility of picking up vital internet news that matter to the users. Previously, Techmeme heavily relied on computers and algorithms to filter the news feeds and select the most appropriate ones to show on its website. However, the company soon realized the importance of human intervention and intellect and has been in the processing of acquiring talent made from flesh ever since.

Along with its information website, Techmeme also runs a unique leader board, that is a combined list of some of the most reputed technology blogs and news agencies that provide the users with valuable information, keeping them up to date with the latest events and enabling them to make informed decisions. Techmeme has also gone big time Twitter, with a feed dedicated for Twitter users that keep the uses informed about the latest happenings in the company.

Via Erictric & Techmeme News.

The micro blogging sensation Twitter and the United Kingdom’s telecommunication giant, Orange have joined hands to create a landmark partnership and provide the Twitter UK users, with much awaited MMS (Multimedia Messaging) support. This will ensure that the subscribers of the Orange network will be able to send images and other multimedia content via MMS to their Twitter accounts, all the while receiving incoming Tweets via SMS.

This new agreement will prove to be a a boon, especially for the users, who do not own a smart phone and yet wish to use the ever popular micro blogging website, Twitter. As per the deal between Orange and Twitter, no extra charges will be levied on the subscribers and only standard rates for MMS will be applicable.

Orange is not the only wireless network that enables its subscribers to receive Twitter messages via SMS. Two other leading communication networks, Vodafone and O2 have already provided their subscribers with this facility. However, Orange is the first network to give access to MMS messaging on Twitter. Perhaps, Orange had understood the immense profit potential by allowing access to social networks, via the wireless network.

Orange has also created a mini portal, since he inception of the Twitter MMS service, where all the images uploaded by users can be viewed by users. This new service is called Snapshot. The Orange subscribers can take an image with their phones, select one of the two option, ‘Send via MMS’ or ‘Send multimedia message’ and then send the MMS to 86444.

Via Twitter Blog.

A few months ago, the internet saw the rise of an all new service, known as Card.ly that had been dedicated to the creation and distribution of social media business cards. Now on the terms, a new service has emerged with almost the same goal in mind. This new service is called Magnetize.

The all new social media business card developer, Magnetize, gives the users the power to create elegant and business cards, that includes one’s business information as well as social media information of the user. The fundamentals behind Magnetize and Card.ly though are the same, yet the way both services creates these social media business cards is entirely different.

Card.ly creates beautiful and elegant business cards with the same information as used by Magnetize, but the cards developed by this service are more informal and has a touch of fun to them. However, when you create your social media business card on Magnetize, the service provides you with an online business card, that is not only elegant, but also pulsates professionalism from every facet of the card. Thus, enabling you to send people and organizations, where an informal business card would be extremely inappropriate.

The process of creating a business card on Magnetize is absolutely simple and the user interface that guides the users for profile completion is extremely use friendly. All you need to do is to provide your name, social network details that include Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, along with contact details, that is if you wish to provide them.

Via Magnetize.

The micro blogging sensation, Twitter has finally decided to forfeit its newly introduced feature, ‘Suggested Users’ amid great amount of controversy as to the process through which Twitter decides which users go on list. Twitter has announced that, it will be exploring other alternatives to provide new users with suggestions, that would allow them to follow their choice of celebrities, organizations etc.

According to Biz Stone (co-founder, Twitter),

“That list will be going away. In its stead will be something that is more programmatically chosen, something that actually delivers more relevant suggestions. Ninety-seven percent of our efforts are basically on delivering user value. Everyone is still experimenting. It’s still young, it’s still early. Anything goes right now as we figure out what works and what doesn’t work.”

The Twitter list is known to have around 500 users as the preferred users, slated to be suggested to the new users who join Twitter. However, the list came into a lot of controversy, especially after California accused Twitter’s list favoring the Democrats over the Republicans.

However, Twitter had rejected those claims and has stated that, the list decided unanimously by the employees of the company and the Mr. Stone and the users on the list are selected on the merit of information that they can provide to theory followers. Though the removal of the list has been confirmed, yet there has been no specific time frame given by Twitter, as to when the list would be shut down.

Via Associated Press.

Ford pulled a very pleasant surprise amidst the crippling recession and ‘the worst market for American car manufacturers.’ The company is finally profitable, having recently reported a $1 billion profit for the third quarter period. It predicts to be “solidly profitable” in 2011.

Ford has had some dependable strategies and standard reasons such as cost-cutting, layoffs, and the cash for clunkers program. But there has also been another unusual, crucial, and extremely successful tactic: the use of social media. It seems that Ford has been gaining sales through it social media prowess.

‘This summer the company boasted that it had logged 13.2 million interactions with the public over social media.’ Having seen that ‘an uptick in positive social media interaction was responsible for Ford’s impressive profits,’ the company pursues its plans to spend ‘a full 25% of its advertising budget online this year, compared to 9% for the rest of the industry.’

Ford is cashing in on the ‘continued rise in social media’s popularity, and its online numbers reflect the buzz’: ‘more than 1.8 million YouTube views, more than 270,000 Flickr views and more than 1.8 million Twitter impressions, resulting in more than 13.2 million interactions.’ The @Ford Twitter account has 18 thousand followers.

Companies are starting to realize that the advertising game is now played online, away from the erstwhile and costly tri-media campaigns of television, print, and radio advertising platforms.

Image

Via Mediaite

When it comes to camera quality, music experience and design aspects Sony Ericsson has well and truly emerged as an industry leader in mobile phone technology and the all new Xperia X10 that just got official seems to cement that status further. Showcasing revolutionary features that are sure to floor you the moment you lay your eyes on this beauty, the Xperia X10 is the first Android phone to break the 8 megapixel camera barrier. But that is only just the beginning of all the goodies that lay inside this masterpiece.

The stunning 8 megapixel camera itself comes with bonuses such as the Smile detection feature, Touch focus and Send to web technology. Add to this 1 Gigabyte of internal memory and a superfast 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and you can always stay connected with your social networking buddies, share pictures, blog on the move and take your internet wherever you go. The large touchscreen of course gives the Xperia X100 that irresistible charm with its very rich and high quality display.

Making calls, emailing, texting, Tweets or scraps, you can just about do anything and everything with this latest piece of wizardry from Sony. Coming in sensuous black, if you wish to go up the style quotient ladder and improve your ‘cool factor’ the Xperia X10 offers the perfect way… Indulgence all the way!

se-store

Affiliate marketing might sound as some complex strategy to sell products and to promote once own stuff, but when you actually look into what it exactly means then you will understand that we are all already neck deep into this innovative plan that has taken the cyber world by a storm. Affiliate marketing is nothing more than an individual or a company promoting product of another firm to the consumer and thereby making a profit in the process. In other words, it’s just putting in the cheap plug-ins in between; in this case though you happen to not plug-in your own stuff but a third party merchandise that you either genuinely happen to like or are looking to make a small profit out of.

With the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and forums that voice a very strong opinion which is generally perceived as reliable by those who surf the net often enough, peer-to-peer publicity has become crucial in the digital age. So now every time that you need to buy a new mobile, television set, cosmetic products or even a pair of new jeans you find yourself ending up searching blogs and sites for reviews.

Amazon.com, a pioneer in affiliate marketing, has grown to such a large scale using this simple strategy that today the online franchise giant makes huge profits from the publicity that Tweets and scraps offer. Word spreads fast on the net- good or bad and hence a positive review from a certified source goes a long way in giving that latest little gadget plenty of credibility. The success of affiliate marketing stems from the fact that those who are involved and influenced are normal consumers, making the air of authenticity all the more genuine. As the system improves and affiliate marketing grows expect everyone to make more currency from the virtual platform!

Techcrunch

If you want to keep a constant update of your weight then just log in to your Twitter account and check your weight on it. This sounds funny and a virtually impossible thing to do but it is true! Withings has announced its new Wi-Fi Body Scale that also works with Twitter. This is such a cool move made by Withings and Twitter together.

As the world knows that Twitter is becoming more popular by the minute, it definitely is going to have a great impact on the Twitterers. On the other hand, weight is a great issue amongst so many people. A lot of folks are fighting with weight issues be it obesity or under-weight problem. Therefore, Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale will benefit a lot of people who tweet regularly as they can keep a constant check on their weights. On the contrary, this may lead many Twitterers to get obsessed with their weights.

Now many people will tweet for a different reason not really to follow other fellow twitterers but to check their weight. Modern technology is indeed very powerful and extremely helpful. I wonder what Withings will come up with next.

Via: UberGizmo