US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking

from Slashdot by kdawson

Arashtamere writes "A study on consumer perceptions about online privacy, undertaken by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that every move they make online can be, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which online tracking is happening or how the information obtained can be used. More than half of those surveyed — about 55 percent — falsely assumed that a company's privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company's privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals' activities online. And a similar number assumed that an online privacy policy meant that a company they're doing business with wouldn't collect data on their online activities and combine it with other information to create a behavioral profile."

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Lil'Grams Launches -- It's Twitter/Pownce/Dogster for Newborns

Augustine: drag and drop simplicity for social networking

from CenterNetworks - by Allen Stern

Last week I had the opportunity to meet NY-based developer and entrepreneur Greg Narain. Greg is a new father and he has created a new Web application based out of necessity. The application is called Lil'Grams and sits between Twitter, Pownce and Dogster. Greg is a new dad and son Aiden needed a memory book/journal but none of the current social media apps provided what he was looking for. I think of Lil'Grams as a digital replacement for the baby book, the 8mm tapes (that was in my day) and the ability to keep Gramma up-to-date on baby's progress. If interested, signup for the alpha on their main page.

Lil'Grams allows you to keep every aspect of your baby updated - from text snippits "he just burped" to video "baby's first walk" to height "damn, looks like those 2 cm's mean new clothing" to food "he really likes those orange pez" and a 1st category for everything baby does "first".

I think Lil'Grams has great potential and exporting select content will be a large benefit as well. Post a quick message on Lil'Grams, click transfer to Twitter and let everyone see what's going on. Same with YouTube, Flickr, etc. I could also see buying a domain name for your new baby and redirecting it to Lil'Grams.

This is a niche site and making sure there is a large enough market is critical. Greg notes below that 1.6 million first-time moms, but the market is larger than that. Moms with multiple children work as each baby will want a book. And the site seems simple enough that translation to other languages should be easy to implement which could provide an entirely new marketing opportunity for expansion.

One monetization strategy for Lil'Grams would be partnering with the team at Sharedbook - I would bet a great marriage could take place as SharedBook can provide the printed books for those who want an offline version for family members who aren't online.

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Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music

from Slashdot by Zonk

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist posts to his site about a study commissioned by the Canadian government intended to look into the buying habits of music fans. What the study found is that 'there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing.' The report is entitled The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada, and it was 'conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits. The authors believe this is the first ever empirical study to employ representative microeconomic data.'"

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A New Way To Make Water, And Fuel Cells

from Slashdot by Zonk

Roland Piquepaille writes "You probably know that it is easy to combine hydrogen and oxygen to make water. After all, this chemical reaction is known for more than two centuries. But now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have discovered a new way to make water. As states the UIUC report, 'not only can they make water from unlikely starting materials, such as alcohols, their work could also lead to better catalysts and less expensive fuel cells.' But be warned: don't read the technical paper itself. It could win an obfuscated contest — if such a contest existed for scientific papers." Yet another advance in fuel cell technology; we discussed a different one just the other day.

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E-TEN's VGA and HSDPA-packin' Glofiish X800 now shipping

from Engadget by Evan Blass

Filed under: Cellphones

We've had our eye on this willowy little minnow ever since we first gave it a proper once over at CeBIT earlier this year, and now E-TEN has announced that its everything-but-the-keyboard Glofiish X800 WM6 Pocket PC is finally shipping (we saw it unlocked on MobilePlanet for $650). Very similar to a number of 3.5G HTC devices already on the market, the X800 steps up the game by offering a sexy 2.8-inch, 640 x 480 screen, 500MHz Samsung processor, and dedicated SiRFstar III GPS chipset. Still, if you can hold out just a little bit longer, a QWERTY-fied M800 boasting the same specs is right around the corner.

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