apartments

VideoEgg to buy Six Apart, rename itself Say Media

Ad network VideoEgg announced today it will buy marketing and blogger network Six Apart to create a combined media company dubbed Say Media.

The goal of the new business will be to hook up advertisers with consumers at a time when online attention spans are limited and ads that interrupt people aren't proving effective, according to VideoEgg. Say Media will team up VideoEgg's technology with Six Apart's social publishing and blogging network in an attempt to create more interactive and conversational ads.

VideoEgg's press release makes some bold projections about the new company.

Say Media could … Read more

We have our reservations

Busy hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts require reservation systems that are both easy to use and powerful. Comfy Hotel Reservation, though not terrible, didn't really impress us on either front. It works fine, but we suspect that there are better programs out there for this purpose.

The program's interface is attractive, reminding us of more recent versions of Microsoft Office applications. We got the sense that the program was originally meant for another purpose--just a generic scheduler, perhaps--and that it was tweaked slightly so that it could be passed off as a reservation system. Rooms--which are referred … Read more

Looking for an apartment? You may get a free iPad with your rent

How hot is Apple's iPad? Hot enough to use as a promotional tool for everything from buying a new car to renting a new apartment. In Portland, Oregon, while searching for a new place to call home, I came across several ads for apartments touting all the normal amenities, showing pictures of their fabulous views, and describing their "perfect" location. But, in the last couple weeks, something new has appeared on these listings.

With the increasing popularity of Apple's iPad, I would imagine more retailers would start to use it as a potential closing incentive. Car … Read more

Renting your apartment could come with a free iPad

How hot is Apple's iPad? Hot enough to use as a promotional tool for everything from buying a new car to renting a new apartment. In Portland, Oregon, while searching for a new place to call home, I came across several ads for apartments touting all the normal amenities, showing pictures of their fabulous views, and describing their "perfect" location. But, in the last couple weeks, something new has appeared on these listings.… Read more

Dot-com thinking for D.C.: Expert Labs debuts

NEW YORK--Former Six Apart executive and well-read blogger Anil Dash has a new gig: he announced at the Web 2.0 Expo here on Wednesday that he will be the director of Expert Labs, a new nonprofit that will take the dot-com incubator model and apply it to new digital tools for the federal government.

"Despite what our ego tends to think in the tech industry, the issue is not that we need to have more tweeting from the White House," Dash said onstage. "(We can) help them learn the lessons that we've seen over the … Read more

Six Apart releases tiny blog tool, TypePad Micro

Blog platform company Six Apart is adding a free, miniaturized blogging service to its paid blog hosting service TypePad. The new TypePad Micro service is essentially a simplified template, called Chroma, for unpaid users on the TypePad service. It will likely be compared with Posterous and Tumblr.

The Chroma template is flexible and attractive, and most of the blogs I've seen using it look good. It's a great format for short posts and for sharing pictures and embedded videos.

But as a short-form blog authoring platform, TypePad Micro is still TypePad, a powerful and capable blogging system that … Read more

Six Apart resurrects Pownce in new microblogging platform

At the Future of Web Apps conference in London this week, blog platform company Six Apart is announcing a new open-source platform called Motion, to be available for download, that enables any Web host or developer to host their own Twitter-like microblog service. The technology is derived from Pownce, the Twitter competitor Six Apart acquired last year (and then shut down).

With Motion, the company is "trying to evolve past a traditional blogging platform to newer social apps," Six Apart EVP Ed Anuff told me.

It's no surprise that this content platform company is working on a … Read more

Apartment Guide releases Android app

As a young bachelor, I'm no stranger to apartment hunting. Normally, I do my research online, make a list of apartments, and head out in my car to visit the listings. This often turns into a full day event, particularly when I have trouble locating some of the places.

I've often wished for a designated application for my Google Android handset to aid in this process so I was overjoyed when I discovered one last week. Apartments for Android is a new application from Apartment Guide that simplifies the hunting process.

Check out our gallery of Apartments screenshots. … Read more

Facebook hires an open-source dude

The news started to emerge in various Twitter feeds and personal blog posts Monday: David Recordon, a Six Apart developer and prominent open-standards advocate, has left the blog software company to take a job at Facebook.

Recordon, who formally announced the job change on his LiveJournal, will take on the title of senior open programs manager. "This past year as I've worked closer with teams at Facebook, I've been impressed by their products, smart people, and innovation," he wrote in the post.

It wasn't so long ago that Facebook was seen as the ultimate in … Read more