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There are many low-cost thumbnail creation services on the Internet. In most cases, the low prices they charge is explained very easily: the services that are provided are substandard. But a company that provides really good value for money is Site Nailer. Read more Learn more about SiteNailer.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much SiteNailer.com is worth with Stimator.com Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

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Summary of the Business Leaders in Communications Study 2012 launch #BLCS2012 · wadds · Storify Who do comsumers trust? (US) (Digital Knowledge Centre – Digital Intelligence) GE Study Proves Consumers Respond More to Shared Content – it would have been interesting to see the source of this data on Tac Anderson’s blog Internet Economy Set [...]

A couple weeks ago, Google started blending social information from Google+ into search results.

The blogosphere's reaction to this change, which Google called Search Plus Your World, was swift, loud, and mostly negative.

Twitter complained that Google was unfairly favoring its own social network over competitors, then a programmer at Facebook seemed to prove it. Worse yet, the results seemed to be less relevant in a lot of cases, leading a number of people to declare Bing the better search engine.

But in all the noise, what do users think?

According to Google search fellow Amit Singhal, who first announced the changes, they love it.

Earlier tonight, Singhal told reporter Danny Sullivan -- who has pointed out some very clear instances where Google is delivering less relevant results -- that "the users who have seen this in the wild are liking it, and our initial data analysis is showing the same."

That's even true when users see stuff that they've shared to private circles show up in their search results: "Every time a real user is getting those results, they really are delighted. Given how personal this product is, you can only judge it based on personal experiences or by aggregate numbers you can observe through click-through."

So what about that accusation that Google was purposely blocking Twitter?

Here, Singhal dances around the question a bit, saying that Twitter suddenly cut off Google's access to its full data stream, which made its Realtime Search product suddenly irrelevant. The Realtime Search team  "put their heart and souls into building a great product, just to see that go to waste."

In fact, it's not clear that Twitter was to blame -- the companies were apparently negotiating, and couldn't reach a deal. But Singhal's point was that it doesn't matter WHO broke negotiations off -- Google doesn't want to be dependent on anybody else for its search product. "I’m just very wary of building a product where the terms can changed."

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• Google: "Ads Are Just More Answers"
• The Panic Over Google's New Privacy Rules Is Ridiculous
• How In The World Will Microsoft Convince People To Buy A Windows Tablet?

You’ll know by now I’m a huge advocate of digital convergence, and this piece is one of the very best I’ve ever seen, it takes the concept to new heights… It’s called Bear 71, an interactive, multi-user documentary experience and installation that debuts at the Sundance Film Festival. Bear 71 Live observes and records the [...]Related Digital Buzz Posts:

1. NZ Airforce “Real World” YouTube Experience
2. Multi-Touch Wall of World Cup History
3. The Multi-Touch Experience Cube

When Facebook finally goes public in a few months, the company will create more than 1,000 millionaires.

And the company is expected to move a step closer to that goal next week: it's apparently filing for an IPO Wednesday.

While the newly minted millionaires won't have their hands on the money for a few months, we thought it would be a good time to check out some of the real estate available in the Silicon Valley area.

These homes may or may not still be available in the spring, but it pays to know what's out there.

This $2.3 million house is very cozy

2615 Cowper St Palo Alto, CA 94306

Beds: 4

Baths: 4

The house was built in 2011 and has an open house this weekend.

This $5.3 million house has water and golf-course views

3187 Alexis Dr Palo Alto, CA 94304

Beds: 4

Baths: 4

The home features a three-car garage, views of the water and a golf course view.

This $2.8 million house has high vaulted ceilings throughout

1236 College Av Palo Alto, CA 94306

Beds: 5

Baths: 6

The house sits on .13 of an acre plot, and features a full basement.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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• Jennifer Aniston Reportedly Just Bought This $21 Million Mansion In Bel Air
• The Founder Of True Religion Jeans Lists His Beachfront Mansion For $10.5 Million

I've noticed an increasing number of ads that no longer send people to the company's sites. Instead, the ads only include a link to the official Facebook page. Sites suddenly look outdated, no longer include the latest information and people stop visiting them. There are still people that visit those outdated sites and many are coming from search engines like Google. Despite Google's efforts to have a comprehensive index, there's a growing subset of the Web it can't properly index and that's Facebook. Sure, Google indexes a lot of Facebook pages, but that's like trying to find your keys in a dark room. Google needs Facebook's map to index all the pages and find the connections between pages and between users, but Facebook is not willing to license this valuable data to the most important competitor. Google tried to make the web social and failed, so now the only option to stay relevant is to build an alternative to Facebook's walled garden and that's Google+. +1s are the new links, authors have profiles, companies have social pages and this new universe will try to coexist with the old Web in Google's search results. Google tried to focus on the users and find ways to make the social Web more open, but now it has to focus on itself and do everything it can to stay alive and maybe even save the Web. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," but that's impossible if it can't access, understand and rank that information. Back in 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin used links to determine the importance of a Web page. Now links and pages are no longer that important and the old rule of trying to send people to other sites as quickly as possible is difficult to apply. Showing personalized results requires understanding users better, encouraging them to share more content and create connections. In many ways, Google+ is the anti-Google and that's why it's difficult to understand some of the new features.

The first ever Federal CTO, Aneesh Chopra, has left the job, the White House says.

He was hired in 2009 with the task of bringing the federal government's aging IT systems into the modern age. He also helped the President draft plans for seeding technology startups.

During his three years, Chopra worked on the President’s National Wireless Initiative, established Internet policies, called for a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, and led an "open government" strategy intended to  fund new technologies that solved federal IT problems.

Chopra is striking for his exuberance. During public appearances, he sounded more like motivational speaker than a techie.

Perhaps that's why rumor has it that he will be running for Virginia lieutenant governor, according to the Washington Post. 

Chopra served as secretary of technology for his home state of Virginia from January 2006 to April 2009, notes Computerworld. Before that he was a managing director with Advisory Board Company, a health-care think tank.

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• 11 Rising Tech Stars To Watch In 2012
• Email Shows How Steve Jobs Got A Google Employee Fired
• 2011 GDP: 1.7%

President Barack Obama spoke this week in the State of the Union message about creating "an economy built to last." Who could argue with this admirable goal? It's one all Americans should be able to get behind. But unfortunately, there's a major obstacle to making progress toward it: the judgment capacity of the US Congress.

The two of us have been thinking a lot in the past year about how some organizations manage to be decisive—and wise—consistently over time. Our book, Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams that Got Them Right, comes out in March. Perhaps needless to say, none of those twelve stories features the US Congress as a hero of organizational judgment. In fact, it's got to be one of the worst decision-making bodies on earth right now.

Consider the evidence: several weeks spent debating whether to pay our bills or not; "kicking the can down the road" for a couple of months on the payroll tax reduction issue; spending lots of energy on silly things (like HR 1022—"The Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks Study Act"). And how about 23 short-term extensions of funding for the FAA since 2007—the latest one, passed yesterday, funding it for all of 3 weeks!

Dysfunction on this level is an inconvenient truth for us, given the advice we give organizations. We urge enterprises not to rely on the wisdom of a lone "great man" chief executive, but rather to create decision-making processes that incorporate data, diverse perspectives, and due deliberation. These would seem to the hallmarks of Federal legislation.

The question, then, is why these aren't enough to make Congress work. What's wrong with its decision-making processes?

Well, perhaps a blog post does not afford the room to answer that question. But here at least are six things—chosen because they might prove instructive to other organizations—that are impairing the lawmakers' judgment.

1. Party-based factions: One of the findings from decision-making research is that, while debate is conducive to good outcomes, hardened factions definitely are not. And Congress, of course, has factions in spades. Thus, as Congress becomes more factionalized along party lines (with fewer and fewer moderates willing to cross the party aisle), it becomes less effective at making decisions.
2. Selfish money motives. Total spending on congressional races will likely top $2 billion this year, a new record. And the new SuperPACs are likely to distort decision-making in Congress as they are distorting the campaigns for the Republican presidential nominee.
3. Poor processes. The Congress has engineered itself a set of incredibly poor processes for decision-making. The Senate is particularly guilty here; a simple majority of votes in that body can accomplish almost nothing. A dizzying array of holds, pocket vetoes, and delaying tactics complete the picture.
4. Lack of accountability. US citizens disapprove of Congressional job performance by over 80% in most polls, but gerrymandering of electoral districts has made most senators and representatives relatively invulnerable to cross-party challenges. Over 90% of Congress's members were reelected in 2010.
5. Unclear roles and responsibilities. Despite a couple of hundred years to get it right, there still isn't agreement on which powers are held by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in the U.S. Witness the most recent hubbub about whether Richard Cordray's recess (sort of) appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was constitutional or not.
6. Little inspiration to change. Just as Congress has become more factionalized, so has the rest of the country. One might argue that Congress's dysfunctionality is mirroring—or at least responding to--that of the rest of the citizenry. Fewer and fewer people seem to want to listen to the other side and cooperate with them to help the country move forward.

It's a daunting list. We can only hope the same factors don't threaten your own organization's judgment. The only good news here is that there seems to be consensus that there is a problem: Almost everyone—even those in Congress—agrees the institution is broken

So here's an idea: why not convene a "blue-ribbon commission" to help the two houses make better decisions? And since Congress itself is unlikely to decide on passing the required changes, why not make the commission's recommendations binding? That's the only way that Congress was able to raise the debt ceiling. It may be the only way to raise the ceiling on its organizational judgment.

How's this for ugly?

One CEO tells another to stop poaching employees, so the other agrees, fires the recruiter, and then apologizes ... to the CEO. 

The men involved were Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt.

This is one of the stories revealed from a class action suit between employees and the power players in Silicon Valley. An email was upturned in the case that shows a conversation between Jobs and Schmidt, reports Reuters.

It documents a situation in 2007 where an Apple employee was fielding a job offer that came from a Google employee. Jobs found out about it, e-mailed Eric Schmidt (who was still on Apple's board at the time) and told Schmidt to stop hiring away Apple employees.

Schmidt agreed and contacted the Google HR director. 

The director told Schmidt he'd put an end to it and then he immediately fired the Google employee who told the Apple guy about the job. According to Reuters, the HR director added in the e-mail, "Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs."

Did the fired employee get an apology? Or the poor schmuck who was asked to come work for Google in the first place?

They may wind up with better than an apology, though, if the employees suing win their case.

Google and Apple are no longer best buddies -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs was furious about Android and promised to go "thermonuclear war" on it, according to his posthumous biography published late last year.

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See Also:

• CHART OF THE DAY: Why Apple Is Suddenly Beating Android In Market Share
• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Mobile Advertising Is Google's Next Frontier
• Apple Uses A Playbook Called The ANPP For Releasing Its Killer Products

Zynga closed at $10.05 today — just a hair above its IPO price of $10 — for the first time since its trading debut after shooting up more than 6 percent in trading today.

A flurry of buy ratings (including one today from BTIG) and the prospect of Zynga expanding into online gambling have propelled it back to its starting point.

A new note from BTIG's Richard Greenfield said Zynga's strategy of creating a ton of games with the hope of players liking at least one game will work. Here's what he said:

We expect Zynga’s increasingly aggressive game roll-out pace in 2012 and expanding portfolio of genres/gaming verticals to be a key catalyst behind our BUY rating.

Its stock has taken hit after hit since making its debut as a publicly traded company. But it looks like CEO Mark Pincus can finally breathe a sigh of relief now that he is once again a billionaire, based on his share of Zynga's stock.

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• The Makers Of Farmville Could Grab Up To $5 Billion In Revenue If They Add Online Gambling
• Zynga's Latest Attempt To Win Back Users
• 'When Online Gambling Is Legalized, Facebook Will Be A $100 Billion Company'

If you’re like most people, you’re annoyed by passwords. You’ve got dozens to remember — some of them tortuously complex — and on any given day, as you read e-mails, send tweets, and order groceries online, you’re bound to forget one, or at least mistype it. You may even be one of those unfortunate people who’ve had a password stolen, thanks to the dodgy security on the machines that store them.

But who’s to blame? Who invented the computer password?

Like the invention of the wheel or the story of the doorknob, the password’s creation is shrouded in the mists of history. Romans used them. Shakespeare kicks off Hamlet with one — “Long live the King” — when Bernardo must prove he’s a loyal soldier of the King of Denmark. But where did the first computer password show up?

It probably arrived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1960s, when researchers at the university built a massive time-sharing computer called CTSS. The punchline is that even then, passwords didn’t protect users as well as they could have. Technology changes. But, then again, it doesn’t.

Nearly all of the computer historians contacted by Wired in the past few weeks said that the first password must have come from MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System. In geek circles, it’s famous. CTSS pioneered many of the building blocks of computing as we know it today: things like e-mail, virtual machines, instant messaging, and file sharing.

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When LTE was introduced to the US last March (with Verizon’s launch of the HTC Thunderbolt), geeks everywhere salivated at the prospect of wireless data that was (in many cases) faster than their home internet connection. Then they actually used the Thunderbolt… then they used the Droid Bionic… and then they used the Droid Razr. [...]

Nintendo has officially unveiled its new Nintendo Network, a collection of services that will include personal user accounts on the Wii U, downloadable content on both the Wii U and the 3DS, and digital distribution of retail products.

Although we have known about Nintendo Network ever since the logo appeared on Theatrhythm Final Fantasy’s box art, there was no clear indication of exactly what the service would offer. During Nintendo’s third quarter financial results briefing, it was specifically outlined how Nintendo Network is going to be integrated into the two big Nintendo consoles: the 3DS and the Wii U.

Unlike the current, archaic Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, Nintendo Network will be a more integral part of how the systems function, much like PSN and Xbox Live for their respective consoles. There were mentions of DLC earlier in the month regarding the new Fire Emblem, and Nintendo of America chief executive Reggie Fils-Aime discussed the paid add-on content that would be coming to the 3DS late last year. Now it appears all of these plans are linked to Nintendo Network.

Paid DLC is not the only thing Nintendo will be adding with its new network. Wii U owners will be able to create a personal account system, a step Nintendo hopes will alleviate the frustration of countless families who share a Wii, but do not have dedicated profiles. Competitions and online communication will also be handled by Nintendo Network, a feature that has already been implemented in Mario Kart 7 as “Communities.”

Nintendo cautiously discussed the idea of offering digital distribution of full retail games, something the company says both the 3DS and Wii U are already capable of. There was no detail in terms of Nintendo’s long term plans regarding digital distribution, but the company is exploring the option. The huge losses and falling stocks have set a fire under Nintendo, one that will hopefully catch them up with the rest of the video game world.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is expected to be the first North American release that will include paid downloadable songs. We can expect to see a lot more of Nintendo Network in the near future leading into a very important showing at E3, and the launch of the Wii U this fall.

Filed under: games

Microsoft is testing laptops with built-in Kinect sensors, which would allow users to control them with voice commands and gestures.

The Daily saw a couple of prototypes that looked to be made by hardware partner Asus. Microsoft confirmed to The Daily that the prototypes were real.

Microsoft said last November that it is building Kinect support into Windows that would be able to see objects as close as 40 centimeters away. But it sounded like the actual Kinect device would still be separate, and plugged in with a USB cable.

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See Also:

• RUMOR: Next Xbox Won't Let You Play Used Games
• iPads Are Outselling Desktop PCs, And Are Now Equal To 17% Of The PC Market
• How Steve Ballmer Made Microsoft A Better Company Since Bill Gates Left

Reuters is reporting that the fees to banks on Facebook's planned IPO could be as low as 1%.

If that's true, it is a stark reminder of who is holds the all the negotiating power in this deal.

Standard IPO fees are 6-7% and for highly sought after or especially large issuances, it's not unusual for that number to drop in about half.

As Reuters notes, only in particularly extenuating circumstances IPO fees dropped to 1%. Recent examples include offerings for companies like GM, AIG and Ally Financial that when shares were being sold by the government.

But Facebook is in a different class all together and is acting like it knows it. Facebook has previously hinted it might avoid Wall Street entirely and use a Dutch Auction for its IPO. The social networking giant has also been reported to have drafted its own prospectus without bank's input.

Facebook knows the demand for its shares is matched only by banks desire to be involved. 

And if fees end up as depressed as Reuters reporting indicates, it would seem Facebook offered a bankers a stark choice: accept our terms on the fee or you're out. 

Bankers, ever-mindful of the reputational and league table benefits of the deal, seem to have said yes.

It's rare that a client can make top tier investment banks to compete on price, but that appears to be exactly what Facebook has done.

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• With Morgan Stanley 'Close' To Lead Underwriting Facebook's IPO, This Goldman Banker Won't Be In A Good Mood
• One Of Wall Street's Favorite Steakhouses Filed Plans For An IPO
• Deutsche Bank's Incoming Co-CEO Says Financial Regulation Will Have A Specific Unintended Consequence For Banks

Google rolled out a new version of its Google Earth software that replaces the patchy, quilt-like mapping graphics with a smoother, more cohesive update.

“The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy,” wrote Google Earth Project Manager Peter Birch in a blog post yesterday.

The new way of rendering makes the mapping graphics look far more like a single image, complete with textures and shading. It really looks like something that came out of a movie — so much so that when I typed in and address I checked my audio setting to find out why the music wasn’t playing. (And then I realized this wasn’t an episode of Planet Earth.)

The update also includes sharing integration with Google’s social network Google+. You can now easily share a screenshot of any Google Earth view by clicking a button in the upper right hand corner of the window. This could be pretty useful when giving directions since it’s a little more dynamic than the standard Google Maps street view feature.

The new update is available now on both the mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth, which you can download on the official app page.

Filed under: social, VentureBeat

Now that the inventor of the iPod and former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has officially left HP, who will fill his shoes? While the ultimate fate of webOS remains to be seen, HP has been prepping for this day for a while.

Rubinstein told AllThingsD that he had let HP know months in advance that he was planning on leaving. He had wanted to skedaddle as soon as HP shipped the TouchPad, but he stayed on in an advisory role at the bequest of HP's Todd Bradley, executive vice president of the Personal Systems Group, he said.

HP shipped the TouchPad on July 1, 2011. A mere 49 days later, HP announced it would discontinue it, and all current hardware devices running webOS. (The next month, HP got a new CEO, Meg Whitman.)

So, who is left running the show?

Bill Veghte is the guy HP hopes will take over Rubinstein's role. Veghte might have the chops for it. He was instrumental in the launch of Windows 7. But he's needs to come up with a cloud strategy for HP -- a giant task and one that it desperately needs to get moving on.

When Veghte was handed the reigns, Stephen DeWitt, dropped them. He was named senior vice president and general manager of the webOS global business unit in July when the TouchPad shipped but that job lasted about as long as the TouchPad did. DeWitt hasn't left HP -- he's working in the PC group. So Sam Greenblatt stepped up. He's a CTO for HP and the newly anointed head of technical strategy for WebOS. Prior to WebOS, Sam's was revising HP's Web sites. He also worked on HP's printers.

Ari Jaaksi, a senior vice president at HP, came on board in November from Nokia. It was a hopeful sign that HP was hiring. But Jaalsi was vice president of one of Nokia's big failed projects: MeeGo. Although a Nokia MeeGo phone shipped this year, to good reviews, Nokia pulled the plug on MeeGo when it partnered with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7.

Matthew McNulty is tasked with getting some applications rolling for WebOS. He's senior director of the webOS development tools and came over with Palm. It's his job to get developers to want to write applications with a tool from Palm called Enyo. If they use it, they could wind up building apps that could also run on WebOS, almost as a byproduct.

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See Also:

• No, Really: This Tidbit Means HP's WebOS Could Rise From The Dead
• HP Explains What's Next For WebOS, But Big Picture Remains Elusive
• HP Loses Another Long-Time Board Member