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Source:Mashable!

I am all about applications and sites that tap into the power of the lazyweb, and Ask500People definitely falls into that category. We reviewed Ask500People when it launched, and over the past few months since then the company has gotten feedback from users on how to be a better resource. They seem to have taken those suggestions to heart, coming out with a long list of new features.

Admittedly, I am a Twitter junkie, and I do most of my crowdsourcing in real time via Twitter polling. I was convinced that I should give Ask500People a look, and can safely say that if nothing else it is a huge time sink. The dynamic visual results sucked me right in and cost me at least ten minutes - that’s a large time investment for my short attention span online, especially with something I’d never used before.

What’s changed since our last review? Ask500People is introducing demographic polling: poll for results by gender, age, location, team, education. That is huge, and definitely something you can’t do with a casual poll on Twitter. Knowing this level of details for an answer to your question is valuable information, and seeing it visually represented is even better.

The company will also be adding the ability to follow polls via a “favorite” system. This is handy if you want to track results over time. Coupled with the demographics and the new embed functionality, Ask500People should pick up a real presence in the online polling sector. Up until now, the fact that competitors like Twiigs and others have had embed capability from the start has put Ask500People at a disadvantage for getting noticed and used.

Other new features include the ability to vote on comments in a way similar to Reddit (arrows that give you an up or down option), and a way to vote on the poll questions as well. Ask500People has also improved the site navigation and given you a way to search past polls as well as integrating with Gnipcentral for volume control. You can also see the more popular question via RSS now, and follow Ask500People on Twitter (@ask500).

If you are a developer, you can now get access to the Ask500People API to develop your own use for Ask500People in the way that best suits you or your company. Last, but not least, the folks behind Ask500People are also giving away rocket logo stickers. If you are a laptop sticker junkie, you can request yours via an email to (Ryan Oazawa) ryan (at) ask500people (dot) com. I know I will be using Ask500People a bit more now that they have added demographics and embedding. That makes it much more useful for me than it was before.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Ask500People Whatever the Hell You WantSee Video Uploads on a Map: DailyMotionWikipedia Edits On a Map, In Case You CaredOrbitz Launches Incentives for Traveler Update ServiceFirefox 2.0.0.8 Released; Enables Leopard CompatibilityWordPress 2.5 Is Finally OutiPhone Update Renders Unlocked Devices Useless

Source:Mashable!

We shed light on Microsoft’s first Live deal with Blackberry maker Research in Motion back in mid May. At the time, both had partnered to deliver Live Messenger and Live Hotmail to smartphone owners held within RIM’s embrace. Today the companies have announced a kind of extension to the contract to involve Live Search among some of the mobile applications present on the devices, including Blackberry Browser and Blackberry Maps.

As with the companies’ previous agreement, the Live Search functions won’t be immediately present on Blackberry devices. “Available later this year,” is RIM’s estimation. Similarly, Live Hotmail and Live Messenger were at first mention said to be ready for a rollout in summer. That was before summer had arrived. Nevertheless, the Live Search feature is perhaps the most essential component to add to its partnership with RIM, as it is mobile search that is, particularly in location-sensitive scenarios, seen to be increasingly valuable. Microsoft’s primary target in the search space, Google, has made no secret of its desire to tap the advertising potential made possible with the increased ubiquity of small screens in consumers’ hands.

Of course, it has traditionally been the case that the Blackberry is the domain of business, which alone perhaps makes this arrangement among tech giants not so very impactful. Yet it clearly is the consumer that is in the sights of RIM with recent design releases like the Pearl, the Curve, the Bold, the newly announced Pearl Flip, and the much-anticipated “Thunder.” The advent of premium hardware from the likes of Nokia and Apple have only served to spur RIM in their direction. And so the financial incentive for RIM to sign with Microsoft - and vice versa - only grows with time. Today’s mention of the Live Search agreement also notes, as with the other services of Microsoft origin, multiple language support will be provided.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:BlackBerry Outage Not As Bad As Skype’sMicrosoft Buying BlackBerry?Microsoft Partners with RIM to Integrate Windows Live on BlackberryMicrosoft Live Search Launches New Features for MobilesFacebook for BlackBerry Drops The “Is” From Your Friend’s Status UpdatesMySpace to Get its Own Blackberry ApplicationMicrosoft Live Search to Become Default on HP Computers

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under News, search, microsoft, web, blackberry, Mobile 2.0, Web apps, RIM, live search, smartphone, San Francisco-San Jose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.