Last week, rumor had it that MySpace was about to launch their long-awaited MySpace email service. It didn’t happen last week, but it’s starting to happen now. The company is rolling it out. It could be several weeks until you have access to MySpace Mail, but trust that it is on the way if you don’t already have it.

The offering makes for an interesting move on MySpace’s part, and one that could be a huge success or a huge flop. It’s no secret that MySpace has felt the pressure of competition from Facebook, which continues to gain users left and right.

MySpace is in something of a rebuilding process, as indicated by News Corp’s Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. MySpace email could end up being a significant factor in future success. The keyword is could.

A few things that won’t work to MySpace’s advantage:

1. Most people are probably comfortable with their current email services.

2. Sharing on Facebook is reported to have overtaken sharing by email by at least one firm

3. Lots of people have abandoned their MySpace pages in favor of Facebook accounts

4. Email is not a new concept, and you have to wonder how many people it will attract

A few things that could work to MySpace’s advantage:

1. MySpace still has a lot of loyal users, and many of them might love the idea of having an @myspace.com address.

2. Facebook doesn’t have email addresses.

3. MySpace plans on getting much more involved with gaming, which could attract a lot of users, which in turn could attract them to MySpace email addresses.

4. It has a nice list of features like: unlimited file storage, the ability to embed photos from user profiles or the desktop with one click, the ability to send and receive music and videos as attachments (good considering how great of a role music and video play on MySpace), etc.

It will be very interesting to see if MySpace is able to turn an old idea like email into a new attraction. Will you be checking out MySpace mail? Share your thoughts here.

This week WebProNews reported on a Twitter documentary that is in the works. The project’s creator Siok Siok Tan of Singapore answered a few questions for us to give people an idea of what to expect.

WebProNews: How did the idea for the concept of the Twitter documentary come about?

Siok Siok Tan: The idea of doing a documentary on Twitter crossed my mind more than a year ago. I put the idea aside because I could not think of a way to put the film together. It is a very difficult film to pull off because it involves people in far flung corners of the globe and Twitter itself is a new experience that is hard to visualize on film.  For instance, I keep hearing people say Twitter has changed their lives. Yet they have a hard time explaining it to their friends who don’t use Twitter. Many non users think of Twitter as the breeding ground for ‘narcissists’ and ‘micro celebrities.’  Twitter is revolutionary and also controversial, which makes it a great subject for a film.

WPN: What is the timeframe like for production? When do you aim to release the film?

SST: We started preparations a few months ago.  We are looking to release the film in March 2010.

WPN: Do you have a title?

SST: Yes. We have a working title – Twittamentary: Travels Through A Long Good Night. But I think we will end up referring to it as "Twittamentary" most of the time.

WPN: Have you spoken with Evan Williams and/or Biz Stone for the project?

SST: No, we have not spoken to the founders of Twitter about the project yet. It would of course be very lovely if they could find time to speak to us. But the film is really more about the people who have imagined and created all these uses for Twitter, many of which the founders would have never thought of.

WPN: What kinds of Twitter-related topics will the film cover specifically?

SST: This may surprise people but the film will not be covering specific Twitter-related topics in the sense that a book about Twitter will cover them.  There will not be a ‘chapter’ on marketing, another on ‘activism’ and one on ‘learning” etc. The reason is that what makes a good book often end up a very boring film.

The film explores the idea that Twitter accelerates serendipity. When lives intersect at an ever-increasing speed, great stories happen at an astonishing rate.  We want to tell these wonderful stories. All the rest of it, the themes and the topics are just part of the great backdrop.

WPN: What do you think about Twitter as a marketing tool?

SST: I think Twitter is probably a better tool for social influence than for marketing. Twitter is wonderful if you have the patience to stay with it and use it day after day and be authentic and playful and empathetic towards others. It can be frustrating if you just want to get something specific out of it very quickly.

WPN: How has Twitter impacted your own lifestyle?

SST: I share my thoughts more frequently with more people than I have ever done before. As a result, I have met many interesting people that I would never have met otherwise. I have also come to think of my work and myself in more global terms because I enjoy this instantaneous connection to people around the world.

WPN: What kinds of ideas are you looking to find from the community for possible inclusion?

SST: We are looking for great stories about how Twitter has affected the lives of real people, stories that have visual potential.  We will be launching our web platform in the coming weeks and Twitter users will be invited to contribute story ideas, rich media and videos.  This is going to be the first "do-it-ourselves" movie about Twitter!

We really need help to get the word of the project out to as many Twitter users as possible. So if anyone who runs a popular blog, news outlet or technology platform, wants to be our media partner, please send me tweet @sioksiok.

Wrapping Up

WebProNews would like to thank Siok Siok Tan for taking the time to answer our questions and wish her the best of luck with her project. Twitter enthusiasts will surely be interested in seeing the film. Keep an eye out for the web platform if you are interested in sharing Twitter stories.

Are you looking forward to the Twitteramentary? Tells us what you think about the concept.

A little over a month ago, a new real time search engine entered the scene. It was called Collecta, and while still in Beta, they have announced some big improvements today.

The company has released a new set of feature enhancements, which improve the way Collecta handles pictures and video uploads in its real-time search stream. Searches now include vidoe feeds from 12seconds, uStream and Qik — tapping into the rising number of video clips uploaded from mobile phones, webcams, and digital cameras. Enhancements have also been made to how Collecta handles TwitPic and yfrog, two photo and media sharing services for Twitter.

"Analyzing traffic patterns since the launch has offered some interesting insights — we’re finding that a large number of users are keeping Collecta open between 30-60 minutes and often even more," said Gerry Campbell, CEO of Collecta. "This underscores the real power of Collecta and its endless stream of live updates and information. By letting a search run for an extended period, people can literally watch stories unfold right before their eyes."

He continued, "For example, it was fascinating to follow the shuttle launch on Collecta. At launch, posts spiked in Florida — with people posting pictures from their phones. Then just as updates started tapering down in Florida, we instantly started seeing posts pop up in Ireland, as the shuttle flew overhead with the bright orange fuel tank distinctly visible. Where else can people watch a global event evolve across the ocean, at the same time it’s happening?"

Collecta’s announcement comes just on the heels of Twitter’s home page redesign, which highlights its own search tool in a bigger way than ever before. Twitter Search could actually help Collecta though. The more average Twitter users that realize there is a purpose for real time search, the more they may realize that the concept could be applied to other sites/networks, and there are other search engines (like Collecta) out there that embody that.

Assuming haven’t spent the past 5 years under a rock, you can’t help but be aware of how much our social interaction and communications habits are changing. As a matter of fact, it’s getting to the point that hiding under a rock is less and less of an option. Most rocks these days are in 3G coverage areas and the few that aren’t will be shortly.

More WebProNews Videos

Communication has never been so easy, widespread, or cheap in the history of our species. The social web and the proliferation of mobile devices with access to it, has given ‘‘everyman’ unprecedented access to ‘everyotherman’. The traditional gatekeepers of information – what we used to call mass media (TV, newspapers and print media) have become at best, just another signal source and at worst irrelevant and unnecessary.

We are texting, Twittering, Facebooking – hell, I think there are still a few people MySpacing. We are doing all of this and we’re doing it pretty much everywhere and anywhere we go. We use our PC’s we use our laptops, netbooks and phones – our access options get more diverse and available every day it seems like.

But is this a good thing?

Like anything else, there is plenty of good and bad here. The biggest and most obvious benefit of this communication and access is that we can be updated and informed 24/7/365. We can chat from pretty much anywhere anytime. Many of us can work from pretty much anywhere anytime.

It’s the golden age of ‘anywhere anytime’ information and contact. Of course it’s simultaneously the biggest downside too. Trouble is, having the ability to work, chat and stay updated any time is that you end up doing all of the above all of the time. To put it bluntly, there is no escape here.

Sure, you can turn it off. You don’t though, do you?

Do you feel like you need a break from the ‘network’? Sound off in the comments.

What about the art of conversation? Some would argue it’s being lost in the shuffle, I think a more apt assessment is that it is simply evolving and suffering some growing pains in the process. We get our news and give our views, for the most part, about 140 characters at a time. That means we talk a whole lot, but we don’t say much when we do. We don’t have the time or space for details anymore.  The news is the headline and vice versa.

Not ideal, maybe, but the upside is we are at least participating in the news. We aren’t just having it spoon fed to us by ‘old media’ editors and interests.  So we are a little light on the details.  It’s a decent trade off I think and you never know, we may get a little more into the details as we move along.

Another big plus is the fact that our collective horizons are being broadened. A lot of people criticize Twitter as a platform for some rather mundane details. I have frequently heard comments like; ‘do I really care or need to know what Terrell Owens is doing RIGHT NOW?’.  Well no, maybe you don’t.  At the same time, I think that’s a fairly narrow minded take on Twitter.

Twitter updates, even the mundane ones, often give you some insight or perspective into how people in other parts of the world or in different social circles ‘see’ things on a daily basis.  I’m not saying that insight is always good or positive.  However, becoming more conscious of larger society or world views would seem to me to make us somewhat less disposed to or at least more aware of local or regional biases. I don’t see that as a bad thing at all.

I do have one major gripe with all of this though. Cell phone etiquette was already bad 10 years ago.  It’s getting much much worse now. Updating your Twitter, checking your Facebook and all that is fine and good…  but not if that attention is being diverted from someone sitting right next to you.

Do you think it’s rude when people you are with spend their time texting? What’s your take?

It’s not dissimilar to one of the classic rules of retail.  If you are with a customer in your store, and the phone rings, you never ever leave that customer to take a phone call.  Likewise, if you are out with family, friends or especially a client or customer, you should always give precedence to the people sitting in front of you over your contact list. We’ve all been on both ends of that and we all know it’s rude.

Beyond being just plain rude, it’s also more than a little weird. I have seen whole tables of people clicking on their phones, barely acknowledging each other.  Ironically enough, if you ask them, they are often working on getting some more people to join them. The sound of ‘social’ is the muted click of a rubberized keypad and no, I don’t think that’s cool at all.

Hopefully though, we can get the physically social reconciled a little bit with the digitally social. The Brave New World of communication is happening right now at Twitter-speed and while the abilities of our toys has somewhat outstripped our ability to use them appropriately, I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives.  It’s an exciting time to be alive really, as long as your batteries hold up.

MySpace may be launching a new email service, but Google never stops adding new features to Gmail, even since the service has finally left "beta" status. The most recent addition to Gmail is the ability to send mail from different addresses without the inclusion of "on behalf of" in the From line.

This is a feature that has evidently been highly requested by users. To utilize it, users need to go to the Accounts page under Settings and click "edit info" from the "Send mail as" section. After that, just choose the option to "Use your other mail provider’s SMTP servers."

The following images illustrate the difference between the feature being off and on:

"Quite a few of you use Gmail’s custom "From:" to send messages with one of your other email addresses listed in place of your Gmail address," says Software Engineer Emmanuel Pellereau on the Gmail Blog. "Since these messages are sent by Gmail’s servers but ‘from’ a non-Gmail address, we have to include your original Gmail username in the ‘Sender’ field of the message header to comply with mail delivery protocols and help prevent your mail from being marked as spam."

"Most email programs just display the ‘From’ address and not the ‘Sender’ field, but some (including versions of Microsoft Outlook) show these messages as coming ‘From username@gmail.com On Behalf Of customaddress@mydomain.com’ which really annoyed people," adds Pellereau.

The old way of doing things is still being kept as an option because as Google points out, there are cases where other addresses might not have a server that you can use. More information on the "send mail as" feature can be found here at this help center.

Last night we told you about the launch of Twitter’s new homepage. The revamped design sports a sleek look that is pretty easy on the eye. But, once you get past the pleasing aesthetics, you’ll also see that Twitter has added a search capability and popular topics, which in turn could mean an influx of Twitterers.

It should be noted that most Twitterers won’t ever see the new homepage, unless they logout of course. But, the new layout isn’t for the "everyday Twitter user", it’s meant for the non-tweeting crowd, or those that don’t see the use for it. Recently, WebProNews featured an article, "The Average American Still Unfamiliar With Twitter", which discussed this very topic. It seems as though Twitter hopes the new homepage will help herd in some of the non-Twitter users.

Do you think the new homepage will help get new users? Tell us.

Twitter Search – Is Twitter competing with search engines now?

With Twitter’s inclusion of search, on the homepage, they’ve now made Twitter useful… even for those who refuse to tweet. WebProNews’ Chris Crum wrote an article about this very topic, and here’s his take on what might happen with Twitter search:

"When a new user comes along to discover Twitter for the first (or even second or third) time, they’ll see that search box. They’ll say to themselves, "What is this? I thought Twitter was just some pointless way to tell people what I am having for breakfast. It’s a search engine now?" Then they will start to understand that there is more to gain from Twitter than what they previously thought."

You might be asking, "What is the big advantage to a Twitter search versus, let’s say Google?" The answer is simple. With Twitter, you get real-time results (which is the next big thing in search). Twitter even highlights this aspect on the new homepage with the following header:

But, don’t think for a second that Google doesn’t know they’re late to the party, in regards to real-time search. Google’s own Larry Page has even stated:

"I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real-time search.  At first, my team laughed and did not believe me.  With Twitter, now they know they have to do it.  Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about real-time."

Will Twitter be able to lure some searchers away from Google? Let us know what you think.

Trending Topics… umm… I mean Popular Topics

By now you’ve probably noticed that Twitter has added "popular topics" to the homepage. But, these aren’t your everyday, profile page, trending topics. With these you can now see what’s popular right now, today and this week.

If you’re still unclear what the popular topics are about, Twitter offers the following description :

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now."

The new popular topics, coupled with search, seems to be a strategy that Twitter is employing hoping it leads to new users. @Biz had the following to say about this on the Twitter blog:

"…demonstrating the power of Twitter as a discovery engine for what is happening right now through our Search and Trends often awakens a sense of wonder which inevitably leads to a much more compelling question, "How do I get involved?""

What are your thoughts about the new "Popular Topics"? Tell us.

Popular Topics / Search Results Pages

Let’s say you want to see why "Apple Claims New" is a popular topic, so you click it. You’re then taken to a re-vamped results page, with an added element. Twitter now displays a description of why the topic is popular.

This new description will come in very handy when those odd terms creep up into the popular topics. Below, you can read Twitter’s description of this new addition:

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now. Some topic descriptions are sourced from What The Trend."

Besides the new description, the results pages are pretty much the same… but they do sport the new updated design. I do wish Twitter would’ve incorporated the FriendFeed sort of ajax auto-refreshing thing they do, that could be turned off and on, of course. (It should be noted that the search results pages look identical.)

Do you find the new descriptions helpful, or distracting? Let us know.

Twitter’s New Search Tips

Upon clicking a popular topic, or doing a search, you’ll notice a new feature in the column, a "Search Tip". Sure, these tips aren’t anything to write home about, but they do highlight some of the underused search operators. I’ve included a few examples of them below:

"Use source: immediately before a particular Twitter source (like a desktop or mobile app) to find tweets posted via that client. Example: weather source:tweetie will find tweets containing "weather" and entered via Tweetie."

"Use until: immediately before a specific date to find tweets sent before and until that date. Example: ftw until:2009-07-16 will find tweets containing "ftw" and sent until date "2009-07-16" (year-month-day)."

Do you currently use any Twitter search operators? Tell us.

Twitter’s Sign up Page

Twitter’s sign up page is probably my biggest complaint with the new design. Why didn’t Twitter update the sign up page with the new look? Isn’t this page the most important to them? It’s the one that brings in the new users.

The sign up page seems very dull and boring when you compare it with the new look. They could’ve at least changed the color scheme to match, but maybe since this page is working well for them, they didn’t want to change it. Personally for me, it feels very disconnected from the new modern look they got going on.

Should Twitter update the design of the sign up page? Tell us.

More Work Ahead

Even though the new Twitter homepage looks great, @Biz is quick to add that they still have a lot of work to do:

"We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information.

We’ll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas. We’re eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter."

What are some changes you would recommend for the Twitter homepage? Let us know.

After checking out Bing’s explanation of how it handles reference searches, it got me thinking how big of a role Wikipedia plays in search. Wikipedia entries are often among the top results in Google, and clearly they are a big part of Bing’s strategy as well.

By this time next year, these are the only two search engines we’re going to be talking about as far as who has how much market share. Yahoo of course will be using Bing to deliver its results, so essentially the big 3 will become the big 2.

If Twitter plays a significant role in the search market, than Wikipedia sure does as well, because it gets a lot more unique visitors than Twitter. In fact, at this point it gets more than Bing too, although that looks to be on pace to change pretty soon.

Twitter results are useful (can be at least) for timely information. Wikipedia results are useful for reference information. These are two very different niches, yet both important ones. I think it’s fair to assume that Google drives a great many of those unique visitors to Wikipedia, and Bing will drive an increasingly large amount too. The question is how many people just go to Wikipedia and search?

Right now, we’re assuming that people are and will just go to Twitter to search when they want to see what people are saying "right now" about something. That’s why Twitter’s homepage redesign is significant. Google and Bing don’t have real real-time search offerings in place…yet.

Twitter Search is significant to the industry right now, but that significance could dwindle once Google and Microsoft start incorporating true real-time search into their own results. We don’t know exactly how either search engine will handle this, but I think it’s safe to assume that it’s coming sooner or later. I tend to believe real-time results will eventually make their way into Google’s Universal results for example.

Once that happens, Twitter Search may not be as important as it appears to be now. I liken it to the importance of Wikipedia search. You can search Wikipedia when you want, and it is helpful. Users will still be able to do the same with Twitter, but chances are, most will search Google or Bing in the future and get their Twitter results from there (based on relevancy), much like they get their Wikipedia results now.

What do you think?

Note: When I say that Twitter Search’s significance could dwindle in the future, I mean with regards to how people search in general. I do think that Twitter Search will continue to be incredibly significant to Twitter itself, and that the new homepage redesign will highlight it and show the public some usefulness that they may not have seen before.

Bebo’s last head, Joanna Shields, left the post about 14 months ago, and the long delay in appointing a replacement raised a number of questions about what direction the social networking brand might take.  But now Bebo has a new head, and his name is Stephane Panier.

Panier’s resume is very impressive.  Educated at the French engineering institute ENSAM and Harvard, he went on to work at AREVA’s nuclear power plants and Booz Allen Hamilton.  Then, Panier spent six years at Google, and more recently, he’s been COO of Bebo.

The fact that Panier (or anyone) was hired corroborates AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s recent claim that Bebo is not for sale.  The fact that Panier’s so well-qualified may indicate that AOL still intends to funnel a lot of effort into making Bebo a big success.

Indeed, Jon Brod, the EVP of AOL Ventures, said in a statement, "He is the ideal leader to build on Bebo’s existing successes, to chart a course for its future, and to execute against that vision."

Panier himself also said, "The past nine months have seen us create and deliver a more relevant and open social experience for our users across both new and existing markets, and I look forward to building on this foundation."

Yahoo and Microsoft intend for their freshly announced search advertising deal to be completed in early 2010. That’s not too far away, and in that deal, Bing will become the algorithmic search used by Yahoo. At that point, Bing becomes the clear competitor to Google in straight up search.

As Microsoft and Yahoo get the majority of the spotlight, however, let’s not overlook the fact that Twitter just redesigned its own homepage, and guess what it looks like…a search engine.

Industry analysts have been frequently citing Twitter’s real-time search as something of a threat to Google. Obviously, Twitter Search doesn’t begin to embody the essence of what Google search or any other traditional search engine has to offer, but it has highlighted the relevance of a new kind of search, and it is frankly just one that is lacking on those traditional engines. You can search Google or Twitter for topical information related to a news story, but you can always get the most recent discussion on Twitter. There are other real time search engines out there, but Twitter has the users.

Google has of course acknowledged that they need real-time search in their own mix, and it’s likely only a matter of time before that happens. Over the weekend, Matt Cutts pointed out that Google "keeps getting fresher." He pointed to a tweet that was indexed after an hour. That’s close, but not quite real-time.

But back to Twitter. Lots of people know about Twitter search already. It’s not like it’s a brand new feature. However, you have to assume that lots of people don’t know about it too. At this point, you’re still lucky if someone you’re involved in a conversation with in the physical world even understands what Twitter is, let alone that it has a search feature, and that that search feature provides results in real time.

Twitter’s new homepage puts that search feature right in you face. When a new user comes along to discover Twitter for the first (or even second or third) time, they’ll see that search box. They’ll say to themselves, "What is this? I thought Twitter was just some pointless way to tell people what I am having for breakfast. It’s a search engine now?" Then they will start to understand that there is more to gain from Twitter than what they previously thought.

Don’t get me wrong. There will still be plenty who don’t care, search engine or no search engine. But it will be interesting to see if more people begin to use Twitter for their searching needs. No, it’s not going to replace Google, but for some, it might replace Google for x-amount of their searches – the searches where a Twitter search makes sense.

Twitter’s new homepage is one of the interesting pieces in the search puzzle this year. And that puzzle is getting more interesting very quickly. Do you think Twitter will continue to play a more significant role in people’s search habits? Share your thoughts.

Barnes & Noble said today it would offer free wireless Internet access at all its bookstores nationwide.

Barnes & Noble has offered Wi-Fi access via AT&T since 2005, but that was a subscription-based service.  Customers shopping in the bookstore will now be able to preview over 700,000 eBook titles along with thousands of public domain titles available from Google, on their Wi-Fi enabled devices.  The company says its number of eBook titles is on track to reach the one million mark soon.

Stephen Riggio
Barnes & Noble

"Barnes & Noble pioneered the concept of retail stores as community centers," said Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "By providing no-fee Wi-Fi access, we are not only meeting our customers’ needs, but extending the sense of community that has always been in our stores."

Mr. Riggio added, "This is a natural progression of our digital strategy to provide customers with more choices in how, when and where they want to read."

As part of the Wi-Fi offering, customers will soon be able to opt-in to receive personalized messages from Barnes & Nobel such as coupons, alerts on an author book signings and details on where to find a new book release.

Last week Barnes & Noble announced the launch of its own ebookstore and its forthcoming Plastic Logic e-reader that will compete with Amazon and its Kindle
 

Last month Google spoke about an initiative it was kicking off to call upon webmasters to help make the web faster. Larry Page once said he envisioned a web that could be surfed as easily as flipping through the pages of a magazine. This initiative is kind of an extension of that way of thinking.

Today, Google has shared a new tool called Page Speed, which can show webmasters how to increase the speed of pages on their sites. It’s actually a Firefox/Firebug add-on that can be used for the evaluation of web page performance and provide suggestions for improvement.

Page Speed looks at things like:

- Did you compress your images?

- Did you set proper caching headers?

- Did you write efficient Javascript?

- Etc.

The tool carries out tests on your site’s server configuration and front-end code. "The tests rate your site against a set of best practices proven to enhance web page performance," explains Evelyn O’Keefe of the Google Analytics Team. "When you run Page Speed on on your site’s pages you will get a set of scores for each page, as well as suggestions on how to improve performance."

The following clip shows you how Page Speed works:

Google says you should use Page Speed if you want to make your site faster, keep Internet users engaged with your site, reduce your bandwidth and hosting costs, and improve the web. Best practices for Page Speed performance can be found here.

Google may be great at search, advertising, and a lot of other things, but its investment strategies could apparently use some work.  Time Warner has bought back Google’s five percent stake in AOL – for which the search giant paid $1 billion in 2003 – for a mere $283 million.

A decent investment is of course supposed to appreciate in value, perhaps to the tune of at least seven or eight percent a year.  The $283 million price tag signals that an overall loss of 71.7 percent occurred, instead.  Oops.

It also looks like another part of AOL’s relationship with Google is set to end, since an SEC filing stated, "[W]e have agreed to use Google’s algorithmic search and sponsored links on an exclusive basis in the United States through December 19, 2010.  Upon expiration of this agreement, there can be no assurance that the agreement will be renewed, or, if the agreement is renewed, that we would receive the same or a higher revenue share as we do under the current agreement."

Anyway, although AOL is now once again a fully owned subsidiary of Time Warner, this development clears the way for Time Warner to spin off the brand.

Time Warner’s stock is down about 0.25 percent so far this morning, which puts it only a little bit behind the Dow and the Nasdaq.

Last week, we took a look at YouTube’s testing of 3D videos after a thread was spotted in the YouTube Help Center where an employee was discussing the concept. This was part of his "20%" time.

The idea of 3D videos of course opens up the possibility of a very interesting future for the world’s most popular video site. In fact, it hasn’t taken long for that future to begin to materialize. While YouTube is likely still very far from meeting the potential it could reach within the 3D realm, the company is already highlighting one interesting utilization of it.

Today the CitizenTube Blog points to what it says may be the first news report shot in 3D. "After hearing about YouTube’s new 3D feature last week, CTV SWO, the Southwestern Ontario regional branch of Canadian broadcaster CTV, produced this story about a pig farmer rally," says Olivia on the blog. Here is that video:

The embedded video shows the double left/right view by default, but if you click through to the actual video page on YouTube, you will find the other 3D viewing options as described in the previous post. There are 12 options.

The idea of watching 3D videos on YouTube is pretty cool, but what about making them? CTV SWO shows how they accomplished the making of the video above in this making-of clip.

I would imagine that we will start seeing a lot of these 3D videos popping up in the near future. That means it’s probably about time to pick up some 3D glasses to keep on hand.

NPR has announced it has relaunched its website in an effort to make it easier to combine listening and reading, follow breaking news, comment on and share stories and find programming from local NPR stations.

The site is now organized to highlight news, arts & life and music. NPR says visitors to the sight will be able to follow news throughout the day, with top stories updated regularly. NPR’s news blog will offer discussions of the day’s news.

The site also offers a new search tool powered by Google that allows user to find programs or topics faster.

"We’re making it easier for the public to find our stations, listen to NPR programs, and follow the news throughout the day," said Vivian Schiller, NPR’s President and CEO.

"With many traditional news outlets declining, listeners are depending more on NPR and our member stations to meet their information needs on every platform. The new NPR.org and our strong push into mobile applications will take public radio to the next level of audience service."

Users will have the ability to customize the NPR homepage to receive a mix of local and national news. With the relaunch of the site, NPR has also dropped fees for transcripts, allowing users access to transcripts dating back to 2005.