Organizations and companies all across the world are coming to grips with Facebook's two-sided challenge.

Now officially the U.S.'s most popular Web site, Facebook is a helpful tool for workers trying to stay in touch and communicate with customers and constituents.

But what does it do to the workplace and to productivity?

Got any instances where Facebook really helped accomplish a major success in the workplace?

Or do you know of cases where workplace social networking has led to company backlash, in the form of restrictions and site blocking?

I'd like some examples of each, if you have any...

send to: toms@spokesman.com

Maybe the economy is turning up....
This new site, FreeStockCharts.com, is out of beta and offering real-time, streaming, stock charts delivered directly to mobile devices.

Now just about a year old, the site delivers the data to both devices and to any standard PC or Mac browser.

Visually, the site is a flood of numbers.

A company contact said its offerings are roughly a million current stock charts, plus assorted alerts and social networking options for members.

Membership is free; however paid subscribers will see other benefits.

The ComScore 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review -

Thanks to Comscore, here's the company's vast and interesting report on the Digital World 2009.
It has skads of nuggets to chew on: where are all those videos people are watching? What's the size of the smartphone mobile market?

In the past day, the Cyan Worlds team has turned on the Myst Online servers. The Spokane company has twice tried to operate a virtual online version of the Myst world.

The unexpected revival of the 3-D world of Uru (Myst Online) means fans worldwide can revisit and meet others in the environment.

The game most recently was supported as a pay-as-you-play experience hosted by Turner Entertainment and GameTap. GameTap kept it running from 2007 until 2008.

It's been dark ever since, until today.

Rand Miller, CEO of Cyan Worlds, sent a note saying the revival of Uru is not yet meant as a money-making effort.

"We're quietly opening things up on a donation basis - today I think.

We don't have the resources to do anything but just run a server at this point, but it'll be nice to hear footsteps in the cavern again."

Spokane ad firm Magner Sanborn put together the idea for the ad "Moments," which appeared during halftime of Super Bowl 44.

Good work, guys.

Spokane tech company Next IT is justly proud that recruit bot Sgt. Star, an interactive customer-service tool on the GoArmy.com site, has been selected for another, perhaps more dangerous mission.

A press release at the company site, NextIT.com, explains the fast-talking recruiter SS will evolve into a more interactive beast.

NextIT developed the interactive agent and the Army began using it in April 2006.

Within the next few months, the virtual Star will get a Facebook version, allowing the usual give-and-take found on GoArmy.

Mobile users will soon be able to text him.

At some point there will be an "animated" Sgt. Star, or more animated than the version today which sometimes opens a session by rapelling down from a helicopter on your screen.

Now, if you try to jive-talk the good Sgt. on GoArmy, he's programmed to say, "Give me 20, mister."

If a real recruiter's set of responses were built into a better animated version, the result might be an R-rated Web site.

Using Craigslist and Google Maps, one could quickly find the four of five wildest, busiest home-based businesses.

Those two online media fairly accurately show that among Spokane's self-employed, these groups are the largest or most active: Dog trainers/sitters/walkers (see for example, www.lilyslilbuddies.com); handymen or handywomen (just search maps for "handyman Spokane);
painters (do the same drill); and house and home cleaners (see Spokane's The Cleaning Authority http://spokane.thecleaningauthority.com/).

A while back we were sent a link to a cool site, PDFMeNot, which takes a PDF file (the universal Adobe Portable Document File) and strips it down to a cleaner, HTML version.

Here's a cool site, PDFmyURL, which does the opposite.

Take any Web site page and produce a solid, accurate PDF version.

It's cool. Not sure if it's especially useful. But hey, we haven't seen anyone else do this all in one quick swoop.

Calling out to tech heads: If you know anyone who's tech savvy but out of a job, one possible lead is Support.com.

Caveat: We are mentioning, with mild reservations, that the California company is ready to hire 100 men or women to take phone-tech jobs with them.

Salaries are not disclosed in the press materials we received.

Nonetheless, Support.com is a publicly traded company and that alone should help vet their recently launched, nationwide scavenger hunt.

See details below in the jump continuation.

Rick Woodbury, founder and owner of Spokane's Commuter Cars, gets a nice mention in today's New York Times coverage of the Detroit 2010 auto show.

The company makes the sharp, narrow Tango, an electric car also in the running in this year's Progressive Automotive X Prize.

The NYTimes.com story is at http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/12/business/AP-US-Auto-Show-Notebook.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Tango%20Commuter&st=cse

Some who read the lower post about Comcast now metering one's data use wondered if using Comcast Voice, or any other home VoIP product, would really eat up large gobs of data.
Walt Neary, who works for Comcast on the west side, said it won't.

Here are Walt's comments shipped by e-mail:

The streaming data in VoIP calls just doesn't use that much bandwidth on a relative scale. We're quite serious that the 250(GB limit) is only going to affect a very, very small group of people.

The folks I talked with are leery about providing numbers publicly because Vonage or Skype might have slightly different numbers, or you might talk with someone who is/says they are a VoIP expert and have different numbers.

I'm not sure there's any standard for expressing how much bandwidth VoIP uses.

After many, many months, I'd say again, the factors that affect notice for excessive use are what I listed originally, vastly unusual amounts of downloading, a virus, etc...

Comcast has released its official data-use meter for its Spokane high speed Internet customers. Users can start seeing how close to a data hog they are, effective today (Jan. 12).

All of this comes from the Web dust-up of about 16 months ago, when Comcast had to admit they were throttling bandwidth on high-volume users.

Eventually Comcast, the country's larget cable company, established and publicized its maximum use data limit: a very HUGE 250 GBs per month.

To use the free usage monitor go here:
http://customer.comcast.com

Then click on the "Users and Settings" tab and look for the "View details" in the "My devices" section (located toward the upper right hand of the screen) that will take you to the data usage details page.

The meter will first show usage in the current month.

It's not a download; it dynamically reads the usage over your home or business network, though it is not always real-time.

Spokane is the second market that Comcast rolled out the service. Portland was the first.

We noticed this blog's list of the ten best U.S. electric cars, and its inclusion of the Tango, the great two-seater developed by Rick Woodbury of Commuter Cars.
Lucky Earth is the blog:
www.luckyearth.com/blog/top-10-coolest-electric-cars/

Woodbury is working on making the Tango ready for competition in the global Automotive Xprize, starting later this year. He's entered into the alternate two-seater category. For more info, go to http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/

Developments have been stealthy and under cover at Cyan Worlds.

Following on the success of the Myst app, the team has been working on the successor, Riven for iPhone, said company President Tony Fryman.

We'll try to nail down, soon, when it's expected.
We're also asking Cyan for comments on other topics, one of them being if versions of the games will land on the other mobile platforms, such as Android, Blackberry and Palm.

Since we're calling out ARO Design's Bugfarm app, it's time to also think about other buggy software.

CNET posted this overview of the year's least safe software, and the list shows a similar pattern, with firms like Mozilla and Adobe dealing with the most frequent instances of patches and upgrades.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10417785-245.html?tag=nl.e404

Spokane's very versatile software company ARO Designs Inc.( www.arodesigns.com) has just had its iPhone game app "BugFarm" approved on the iTunes store.

Company co-founder Michael Sheets sent the following release:

Apple has released “Bugfarm Mobile,” the first iPhone software to result from a joint venture between ARO Designs, Inc. of Spokane and Sterling International, Inc. of Spokane Valley.

Sheets describes the new program as "a fast-paced, casual game, ideal to play while waiting in lines or between 'phone calls. It's also somewhat addictive."

A free demo and the full version are available now through iTunes or downloadable directly from Apple's App Store.

Subscribers to both Comcast Corp.’s TV and Internet service can now stream television shows or movies to their computers, the cable company announced.

Comcast's blog on the service: http://blog.comcast.com/2009/12/fancast-xfinity-tv-national-beta-launch-a-guide-to-get-started.html
Called Fancast Xfinity TV, the new service was rolled out in beta (test) mode this week.

The cable company, the largest in the country, said the service should be available to most of the roughly 15.7 million customers who use both high speed Internet and Comcast TV services.

There is no extra cost but customers need to download software to use Xfinity, said spokesman Walt Neary.

Usually fun and well-informed folks at CNET have apparently lost their sense of humor.

We noticed, at this link http://news.cnet.com/2300-1023_3-10002005.html?tag=nl.e404 that they regard the now infamous Keyboard Cat as one of -- if not the No.1 -- awful or annoying thing spawned by the Internet.

Is that so? (We kinda like the cat, inasmuch as it was the product of creative local guy Charlie Schmidt).

What about rickrolling? What about dogs skateboarding on YouTube? Finding new friends for people on Facebook with not enough "friends"?

The most popular apps on iTunes have just been announced.

There are two sets: free and paid.
Here is the paid list:
MobileNavigator North America ($89.99)
Textfree Unlimited ($5.99)
Tom Tom ($99.99)
Golftshot: Golf GPS ($29.99)
SlingPlayer Media ($29.99)
ColorSplash ($1.99)
Pocket God ($.99)
Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite ($9.99)
The Moron Test ($0.99)

Here is the list of top downloaded iTunes games:
The Sims 3 ($6.99)
The Oregon Trail ($4.99)
Need for Speed Undercover ($4.99)
Medden NFL 10 ($6.99)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour ($4.99)
Assassin’s Creed ($4.99)
Flight Control (flight control) ($0.99)
Cooking Mama ($6.99)
Civilization Revolution ($6.99)
Wheel of Fortune ($4.99)

Rick Woodbury, founder and CEO of Spokane-based Commuter Cars, recently spent time with Jay Leno down in Burbank. This video came from that visit, and is found on jaylenosgarage.com.
Very cool.

Ed Bott, who writes at ZDNet, has a completely thorough story on why media sources, including the IDG group and PC World, did a woeful job of reporting on the so-called "Black Screen of Death."
A great read.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1575

AOL’s Top Searched Mobile Devices for 2009

1. iPhone

2. iPod Touch

3. PSP

4. Palm Pre

5. Zune

6. Blackberry Storm

7. Garmin Nuvi

8. Blackberry Curve

9. Sidekick

10. Amazon Kindle

Zune at No. 5 surprises me. I would have figured it might be no higher than 9 or 10.

For those of you iPhone fans who also use Red Box video rental, take note.

On Monday there will be a new iPhone app that serves up money-saving promo codes for rented flicks. Those codes should, if all goes well, earn people free rentals from Red Box, which is based in Bellevue, Wash.

It will be available through the iTunes store, we're told, and will cost 99 cents.

Developed by Neese Products, the Red Box app produces codes that can then be entered into the kiosk boxes wherever Red Box has a location.

Codes will be updated twice daily and also feature a ranking system to ensure the validity and usefulness of each promo offered.

New York freelance photographer Robert Caplin used three cameras and more than 5,000 shots to develop this one-night montage/time lapsed video of one of the games between the Yankees and the Phils.
World Series Time-Lapse by Robert Caplin from Robert Caplin on Vimeo.

You must try out Bing, MS's improved Web search site, at least two or three times this week.

This is not shilling on my part. I just want people to try out a few of the new features now part of the Bing search experience.

One is the option to find events in the community.

Simply type in Spokane events in the bar and you get a handy list of coming concerts, shows, whatever.

Bing offers more information on hospitals, displaying reviews, patient ratings and phone numbers, and allowing the user to search a hospital or medical center's Web page from Bing.

Type Spokane Hospitals in the search box. Click on each result. Bing will display reviews found across the Web. In the case of Spokane, reviews are only from Yelp, at this point.