Solution Point Media

CoffeeandPower, the latest project from Second Life co-founder Philip Rosedale has launched in test-mode in the San Francisco area. The service describes itself as a "sort of live version of Craigslist."

There have been a number of startups take aim at Craiglist as of late. That's no surprise, really. The UI is wretched, there's no social sharing component, and there's no mobile Website and no mobile app. There's definitely room for disruption here, right?
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By now we all get that local anything online is important. That fact is understood very well by the Internet industry because we see it play out first hand in percentage of searches with local intent and the mainstreaming of smartphones that will accelerate this growth.
As with most things, it’s important to have some numbers to back up the observational ‘gut feel’ we get when it comes to trends. BIA/Kelsey has put some numbers to this phenomenon and for the foreseeable future, local search revenues will ride the wave of this growing popularity.

Last month, Instapaper founder Marco Arment revealed that he'd pulled the free version of his popular "read later" app from the App Store. There were few complaints and sales of the paid version remained strong. Arment's action seemed to challenge the prevailing notion that a free app (typically an ad-supported app) is necessary or a good idea.

That may hold true for Instapaper, which has no doubt developed a strong lead in this space - a well-established and well-respected brand. Users have found value in the service, and so they pay.

Popular mobile app Instapaper isn't just a great way to catch up on reading when you're spending time offline. It's also a little bit of magic that blends the quiet of time disconnected with the buzz of the social web. It looks like that may become all the more true with the addition of a blogging tool to the Instapaper app, if a public conversation about the matter can be taken literally.

Google Places just announced a new feature that lets you import the places you've checked-in to on Foursquare into Google to rate and review. It's as simple as finding the feed from your Foursquare profile, copying its link and pasting it into the search box in Places. It's really easy!

We have any number of ways to sign in online.

Brian Madden points out it's an ever-more-complicated concern as the concept of the desktop changes and we grapple with ways virtualization is treated in a security context.

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This infographic from Gigya illustrates the ways people identify themselves. We need to think about how identity is associated with our social profiles, how we use virtualization to enhance security and as a way to administer apps, and how those apps are used.

What do you think?

Discuss

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eight New York residents sued Baidu Inc and the People's Republic of China on Wednesday, accusing China's biggest search engine of conspiring with the country's government to censor pro-democracy speech.

Blood tests that seek to tell people their biological age are going on sale, but some experts say the tests will not provide any useful information.

LONDON (Reuters) - Apple and Google smartphones may come under tighter regulation in Europe after a data protection panel ruled that data on the location of their users should be classed as private, the Financial Times said Thursday.