I have been looking for a method of pulling in the latest news on a particular topic for this blog. The plug in I found is called Google News which can be found here or search for ‘Google News’ in your plug in menu. The plug in works by allowing you to create any number of different feeds specifying the news region, topic or specific subject. You then simply add the short code to your blog post citing the title you have given the specific feed [NB - that bit is case sensitive.] Once that is done you will have an ever updating news source in your page.

This example is pulling the latest Swine Flu news.

[google-news name="Swine_Flu"]

This is a new artist to me – found whilst playing music on blip.fm – the social radio site. Its basically Twitter radio – choose & play tracks, others can listen along, comment, reblip (retweet) and connect with you. It is good fun and also a great place to find new music, like this one.

So,

Shivaree is an American alternative pop/rock band formed in 1999 consisting of Ambrosia Parsley (vocals), Danny McGough (keyboard), and Duke McVinnie (guitar). They have produced four albums, with approximately 500,000 combined sales.[citation needed] Shivaree is best known for the song “Goodnight Moon”, released in 1999 and appearing in Dawson’s Creek and Kill Bill: Volume 2. (wikipedia)

This song has a touch of the Divinyls ‘I touch myself’ (which is strangely absent from YouTube)  to it, but also sounds totally unlike anything I have heard in a long time. The beat is great, the tempo is different and the song is damn catchy!

Connect with me at Blip.fm and enjoy the song!

I came across this amazing video the other day. It is from the world’s second largest aquairum, shot at Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.

It was shot at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan.  The main tank called the ‘Kuroshio Sea’ holds 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water and features the world’s second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters. Whale sharks and manta rays are kept amongst many other fish species in the main tank.

The awesome music is ‘Please don’t go’ by Barcelona.

You may wish to put this full screen to gain maximum enjoyment.

Hey,

Sorry I haven’t been blogging for a while. A combination of family commitments and lack of inspiration [and some sunshine] has meant I haven’t been on much. But I have been active on other social networks. If you haven’t done so already, please connect with me on Friendfeed – its not new but is trending now as more people realise that FF can be ‘Twitter +’ streaming all my social channels plus giving you the chance to interact. See you there?

www.friendfeed.com/jamieriddell

These are my links for July 8th through July 9th:

• Social Gold: Virtual Economy Platform: Currency, Payments, Analytics | – Social Gold powers virtual currency and payment solutions for some of the most popular online games on social network applications, including Lil’ Green Patch, Mafia Wars, and many more.
• Collection: Illustrations from our books – Remix! – This collection contains sets of illustrations from our books and which are under a CC license. In the coming weeks, we will be posting more illustrations from our books. Feel free to experiment with these images and create your own stories (or use it in whatever way you want). Leave us a link if you try your hand at creating something, so we can also see what you came up with.

Google announced today the launch of the Chrome Operating System, an extension of the Chrome browser initially intended for the fast selling netbooks.

The announcement is a major one by any definition. However, it can also be seen as the culmination of a master plan which over time had many significant milestones. The offering of Gmail, Calendar, the purchasing of Writely, the introduction of Google Gears, then Chrome & Android.

Like the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers – each element of the Google Aresenal was powerful in its own right. But stick them all together into an operating system and the total is much more powerful than the sum of its parts.One can be confident the operating system won’t end with mobiles and netbooks.

This same game plan needs to be watched in the social media space. Take Gmail, Calendar, Picassa, YouTube, add a Jaiku purchase then launch Google Wave and Google are well on their way to another behemoth.

The next issue to watch after that is when the subscription model kicks in. Others have already noticed the quiet decrease of services offered free from Google Apps, and an increase in the promotion of ‘premium packages’.  Google’s game plan here is to become the essential partner for so many services before switching on a premium model. If that happens [even at a few dollars a month] we could see the next billion come easily for Google.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sources: Google OS lives (and it’s coming to a netbook near you) (arstechnica.com)
• Google Chrome OS: Web developers rule! (ajaxian.com)
• Google Chrome OS for PCs: Look Out Windows and OS X [Google] (gizmodo.com)

These are my bookmarks for July 7th from 17:01 to 17:27:

• NASA Aeronautics Research Onboard – Brilliant animation about how Nasa research has infleunced the design and structure of modern commercial and military aviation
• Task.fm – SMS, Phone and Email Reminders – task.fm is the worlds fastest productivity tool. create smart reminders right from your email, twitter or through the app

Apparently [note the word, apparently as I couldn't see this anywhere in their T's & C's] Amazon will not honour payments for sales generated by Twitter or any tool that shorten urls.

This blogger seems to feel hard done by for not getting his commissions, which is a fair enough feeling, no-one likes losing money they have earned.

However, I believe Amazon is right to not honour payments from url shorteners and or twitter [et. al] Why? Well the use of url shorteners could be seen as a method of cloaking a paid ad. In an ideal world, the user needs to see that they are clicking on a commercial link, rather than straight recommendation.

Furthermore, the Twitter thing is potentially more about the trust of Twitter users. In just a few clicks you can find websites offering ‘real’ twitter accounts by the thousand. Indeed my followers have grown exponentially with ‘real’ people but I’m not convinced they are indeed genuine users. Therefore the real value of a Twitter recommendation may be heading south as more ‘spammers’ jump on.

So, Amazon has a trust issue to manage. They also have a communication issue to deal with – it may be time to make such policies a little clearer.

This ruling doesn’t mean you cannot use Twitter to promote Amazon products, you just have to promote your products on your own blog/personal space and promote that link instead of directly to Amazon. Whilst this takes a little more leg work, you also have the potential to upsell the audience.

These are my links for July 6th through July 7th:

• Graham Darracott bids farewell to Graphico – Brand Republic News – Brand Republic –
• Digital Marketing Group: the fastest-growing digital DM agency combine you’ve never heard of – In Depth News – Brand Republic –
• Dropbox – You’re invited to join Dropbox! – Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy. – Free online backup 2GB + 250 MB of bonus space.