When James Deer led digital design agency DEER/digital, he says he encountered the same issue over and over — when his team built content-rich websites, it was largely an email-based process, where they had to dig up images and files from email threads that were months old, or copy content from Word documents that were hundreds of pages long. To reduce their own headaches, Deer’s team member built a product to manage the content collaboration process, and eventually the agency spun that product out into a new startup, called GatherContent.

“Content chaos is just rife,” Deer says. “We want to bring content harmony.”

To do that, GatherContent (which is launching publicly today), offers a drag-and-drop interface to lay out the structure of each web page. Someone can create a template that identifies each element of the page, as well as guidelines for length and content — for example, you could say, “The product description goes here (no more than 200 words)” and “product screenshot goes here.” Then other users can come in and fill out the content. So a design agency could work with their client to develop the structure of the website, then different team members can come in and add the element that they’re responsible for.

Of course, you can already manage some of that process through a product like Google Docs, but GatherContent adds more structure, for example by allowing users to manage their approval processes and deadlines. Different users can also have completely customizable privileges depending on their roles within their organization. And there’s a chart showing you how much progress has been made on each project.

When you’re done building the website, you can export the document as a PDF, and GatherContent is also working to integrate with other content management systems, starting with a plugin for WordPress.

The product has been in private beta testing until now, with customers including Unicef and JWT. And although it was built for agency-client collaboration, Deer says companies are using for other types of content creation too, for example writing internal newsletters.

Deer adds that he has actually turned some investors away from the company — for now, it’s being funded by the agency (in the form of loans), though he’s open to raising money later, when the product has more traction. Pricing starts at $24 per month.

How it works from GatherContent on Vimeo.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook today announced an “explicit sharing” parameter for Open Graph apps, which will allow developers to publish more prominent News Feed stories on behalf of their users who want to share actions like taking photos, checking into locations or providing commentary.

When Facebook introduced the concept of Open Graph apps last year, the idea was that users would consistently share their app activity after a one-time authorization. This activity would be added to a box on a user’s Timeline and distributed to friends through Ticker. Whether the story would appear in a friend’s News Feed would depend on the weight of the action — for example earning a rare achievement within a game — and a user’s relationship to the friend and affinity for a certain category of app — for example, showing more news activity to users of social reader apps. These algorithms, as any, are a work in progress that will require more signals to be truly relevant.

Not only was this somewhat difficult for developers who want to maximize their reach, it could be quite unclear to users who wanted to share something from an app with all their friends. Facebook uses the example of how when people choose to share a run they took with a fitness app, they expect the content to appear as if they had posted it directly to Facebook.

Now with explicit sharing, developers can indicate which actions should be shared more prominently in the feed, for example, location sharing or a user-generated photo or message. Activity that happens naturally through using an app — listening, reading or watching — or lightweight actions such as following, favoriting or saving, will continue to be distributed and aggregated as before.

This change is likely to help developers drive more traffic to their apps and improve the experience for users. When Facebook debuted Open Graph apps at f8 last year, the company emphasized “frictionless sharing.” This term led some developers to focus on the auto-sharing aspect at the expense of user experience and trust. Now Facebook has to do damage control on the user and developer side. Users need more ways to control how they share, and developers need resources to understand how Open Graph apps work and what their value is besides auto-publishing.

One benefit is the noun-verb construction, which lends itself to powerful stories on a user’s Timeline and rich aggregations in the feed. For instance, Ticker stories about what a person’s friends are listening to right now might be considered noise, but being able to see that three friends listened to the same album in one week might be interesting. This information is even more useful when it appears not in the feed but when someone is actively searching for information about an artist, which is why Facebook displays these stories on musicians’ pages. And for many app users, it’s valuable to be able to see their own activity over time, either to recall something in the past or to learn something new about themselves.

These situations are possible because of the structure of Open Graph. With the new explicit share option, we may see more developers begin to think beyond auto-sharing and build apps that take advantage of this unique format. Developers who want to make their existing Open Graph actions eligible to explicitly shared will have to resubmit their actions for review. Facebook says it may take up to seven days to provide feedback to developers. Documentation for the new parameter is available here.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

There are plenty of travel sites out there, but have you ever noticed that almost all of them help you get where you’re going and then leave you all alone in the dark once you actually arrive there? What spots are must-see, what food is must-eat, and which shops do you absolutely have to pop into?

There really isn’t a great way to efficiently and reliably plan out a trip itinerary on the web, except of course for the new travel site and service, Fathom. And thanks to a new partnership with Kate Spade, Fathom is about to get a whole lot more fashionable in destinations like New York, L.A., London, Tokyo and Tahiti.

The site is a streamlined guide to the cities you want to visit, curated by former DailyCandy editors who can shed more light on food and good travel than most of the user-generated content out there. The core idea is tightly edited lists of places to go, food to eat, and things to do.

“24 is the magic number,” said founder Pavia Rosati.

The service compiles lists of 24 travel ideas, including old favorites, new finds, and multiple price points to make sure you can find what you’re looking for without sorting through a mess of madness. Rosati describes Fathom as the type of information your best friend would give you if they lived in the city you were traveling to, but couldn’t be there with you.

There are various features on the site, like Post Cards, which is set up around the structure of “I travel for the…” They are basically inspiration for the traveler. The idea is that even if you don’t know where to go for your upcoming vacation, you can figure out something great once you know your favorite part of travel, whether it be food, fun for the kids, shopping, or relaxing.

Fathom also features a store that lets you bring your favorite destinations back to you, with highly curated products. You can shop by destination, traveler, category or activity, meaning you can shop for a Safari or get your favorite mustard that’s only available in New Orleans.

Fathom has also just partnered with Kate Spade to bring Spade-themed travel guides to five locations, including New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London and Tahiti. If Tahiti sounds like the word that doesn’t belong, that’s simply because Kate Spade is working with a Tahitian-inspired print this year.

Each guide will have five sections, with five to eight suggestions for each category (sleep, eat, drink, shop, and explore). The guides will also feature itineraries, cheat sheets, and clever packing lists.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

You know what I’m into? Quora‘s efforts at gamification. Because listen, Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever could have chosen to devote their youth to anything on earth and they have chosen to build a database of all content that people want to know. Valid.

Also, last night I was searching the Internet for info for a story on why SF cab drivers are so averse to using credit cards, and wondered if there was a Quora thread about it … Lo and behold there was. Rad.

Imagine being able to do this with any inquiry on earth, people?

I debated sending the entire team a note of thanks, but instead am writing it here. (Hey guys, whats up?)

So now, in addition to getting to “pay” people to answer questions, every time you ask a question on Quora, the site presents you with the incentive to spend 50 credits to “add topics.” The carrot is that you get to show your question to all topic followers. The stick? Well, without being Robert Scoble or something it might be hard to get people to look at your questions, unless you cough up some credits. Eh, hem.

Also, the topics are now aligned on the right rail.

This is obviously one way Quora can get users to think twice about asking questions that don’t add value (for example) while keeping the quality of the site up. Also, I guess they’re really serious about this credits thing and are trying to find new ways to implement the structure. Fine.

For those of you who plan on being Quora cheapskates; Users can still see non-paid for questions if they’re still following people who follow the question or ask the question. On a somewhat hopeful note, if a question now becomes followed enough, it automatically gets added to a topic. Amen.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

So, this isn’t exactly breaking news, but it’s so awesome that it’s worth sharing again in case you missed it. HIV/AIDS has killed some 25 million people worldwide and scientists have been working diligently since the virus was discovered in 1981 to find a cure. While a cure still eludes researchers, several protease inhibitors have been developed to slow its progress. But last week, HIV/AIDS research took a huge leap forward, thanks to the work of gamers. Yes, gamers.

About three years ago, a team of researchers at the University of Washington created a game called FoldIt to allow gamers to contribute to scientific research by playing with the shape and structure of proteins. Why proteins? Well, there are more than 100,000 kinds of protein in the human body, and understanding the structure and makeup of these proteins is key to understanding how they work and as well as to designing drugs that target them.

As proteins are found in the majority of diseases we suffer from, they are also key to developing cures, and so FoldIt enables gamers to design new proteins and fold known proteins into their most workable forms in an effort to contribute to disease prevention.

According to FoldIt’s website, “Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans’ puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins”.

And last week, FoldIt became more than just a cool idea, or an exercise for scientifically-minded gamers. Scientists have been attempting to decipher a protein called “retroviral protease” for over 15 years, as the protease is one of the key proteins that allows HIV to multiply and replicate itself in living cells. Using FoldIt, gamers were able to identify the structure of the protein — within a matter of 10 days.

With the structure of retroviral protease unlocked, scientists can now begin taking the necessary steps to build a drug that could significantly slow the speed at which HIV develops. The findings were initially published in a Nature article, which readers can find here.

“Following the failure of a wide range of attempts to solve the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease by molecular replacement, we challenged players of the protein folding game Foldit to produce accurate models of the protein”, the University of Washington research team said in its findings. “Remarkably, Foldit players were able to generate models of sufficient quality for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination. The refined structure provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs”.

In this MSNBC report, the gamers describe the way in which they were able to work together cooperatively to solve a puzzle that has confounded scientists for more than a decade. And what’s so cool is that, while some of the most important progress in the game was made by those with biomedical academic backgrounds, the majority of active players playing with FoldIt did not have this kind of scientific background. Many of them were just average gamers like you and I.

“The monkey-virus puzzle solution demonstrates that Foldit and other science-oriented video games could be used to address a wide range of other scientific challenges — ranging from drug development to genetic engineering for future biofuels”, Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington told MSNBC. “My hope is that scientists will see this research and give us more of those cases”.

What a remarkable win for the non-shallow end of gamification. We hear so much about how game layers are being added to consumer tech products to encourage engagement and interaction with products and apps, but with FoldIt, we have a real example of how gamification can help solve some of the trickiest of scientific problems and help make the world a better place.

Way to go, gamers.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:

The PenMoto, Reborn
Video: New Construction Material “CO2 Structure” Could Serve As Alternative To Concrete
HDI 3D Projectors Look Like Something Aliens Gave Us
CableKeeps Keep Your Jumbled Mass Of Apple Chargers Nice And Neat
Video: Free-Moving Kinect Used To Map Room And Objects In Detailed 3D

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This almost sounds too good to be true: a Japanese company called TIS&Partners [JP] has developed a new kind of construction material that’s supposedly “better” than concrete (by some measures, at least). Dubbed “CO2 Structure”, the material hardens in about a day, as opposed to the 28 days it takes for concrete to cure to 100% of its strength.

TIS&Partners says bricks consisting of the material can be formed in about a minute. After adding organic substances, CO2 Structure’s tensile strength is said to be “at least” 2.5 higher than that of concrete. In other words, the material not only hardens quickly, it’s also more “stable” than concrete.

TIS&Partners says that their material could be used to reinforce structures in buildings in a quick manner, for example those that were damaged by the earthquake that hit Japan back in March.

This video, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo, provides more insight on CO2 Structure:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook IPO “Inevitable” – Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg said this week that a Facebook IPO is “inevitable.” [Image via Facebook]

Facebook, Others Oppose California Privacy Bill – A proposed bill in the California legislature, SB 242 the Social Networking Privacy Act, would change the information that companies like Facebook could provide about users under 18. Facebook and other tech companies submitted a formal letter of opposition in response.

Study: Like Button Gathers User Data – The Wall Street Journal published a story on a report the publication completed on social widgets such as Facebook’s Like button. The report notes that such widgets appear on 20-25% of the 1,000 most-visited sites and that Facebook claims it anonymizes this data, deleting it within 90 days.

Facebook’s Acquisitions Mostly for Talent – A New York Times story scrutinizes Facebook’s acquisitions (a long-running trend that we’ve covered in detail before), specifically looking at whether the company paid too much in some cases. The story notes that the $47 million FriendFeed acquisition cost about $4 million per employee and Drop.io brought in only one employee to the company for several million dollars. The point is talent. Engineers today “are worth half a million to a million” dollars, explained Vaughan Smith in the interview.

Facebook Wants Help Section to Go Viral – Facebook is asking users who visit the site’s Help section to share information about how to avoid malicious script scams. [Image via AllFacebook]

New Technology to Fight Child Porn – Facebook is using the Microsoft-created PhotoDNA program to fight child pornography amongst the 200 million images uploaded to the social network daily.

Eventbrite Raises $50M – Eventbrite, a startup that leverages social networks to sell tickets, raised $50 million in Series E funding this week led by Tiger Global. This brings the total funding for Eventbrite for $79.5 million, and the company said the money is set for domestic and international expansion.

Facebook on GigaOm’s Structure 50 List – GigaOm’s Structure 50 list of companies influencing the cloud includes Facebook, in light of its advances in server and database hardware and software. You can find out more about the Structure conference here.

Jive Facebook Connector Syncs Discussion Forums – Jive Software has launched Jive Facebook Connector to allow Facebook Pages to create a version of the Jive community forum found on their website as a tab application. Comments on either instance of the forum are synced with the other, reducing the need to push users from one online presence to the other, and pulling Facebook content offsite to assist with SEO.

Fan Appz Launches Fan Tabz – Fan Appz launched a new custom tab application, Fan Tabz, this week for $19.95 a month.

Baseball Fans Share Team Love on Facebook - Facebook’s Data Team wrote an interesting blog this week detailing the different ways in which fans share their love for baseball teams on Facebook.

Winklevoss Bros Lose Another Court Move – The Winklevoss brothers, who have been suing Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook for several years, lost a bid to have their case heard again in the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

As Facebook expands its territory and allows for more and richer content, its responsibilities towards that content (and their users, and the law, etc.) become deeper and more complicated. While the structure of Facebook isn’t nearly as permissive as, say, a private message board or tracker site, the sheer amount of activity produced by hundreds of millions of users demands a level of vigilance matchable only perhaps by that exerted by YouTube administrators.

But like YouTube, they must also work within the law, and while the right to make a fan page for someone else’s work isn’t the most critical example of free speech, it serves for a quick lesson in DMCA compliance.

Continue reading…

Article courtesy of TechCrunch