Gasta News: Guardian launches Open Platform.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has today launched its open API which will carry all the content the newspaper produces in print and online. That’s over a million articles which go back to 1999. The “Open Platform” will allow allow partners to reuse Guardian.co.uk content and data for free, in a clear move to try and make the The Guardian an all pervasive part of the Web. In contrast with many newspaper groups, The Guardian is effectively letting control of its content go in order to maximise its reach - and therefore the number of eyeballs that see its brand/content - across the Web. It helps that the paper is owned and run by a charitable trust which does not have shareholders who would normally have a heart attack at such a move.
The Open Platform launches with two services, both of which carry advertising. Web developers will use the API to build applications and services using Guardian content. And a Data Store will “contain datasets curated by Guardian editors and open for others to use.”
However the API does not prevent developers from running “commercial applications” using the API - but I’d read the fine detail first. They do say: “You can display your own ads and keep your own revenue. We will require that you join our ad network in the future.”
Emily Bell, the Guardian News & Media director of digital content, thinks the move will allow Guardian content “to be woven into the fabric of the internet”. And there’s a hell of a lot of it. The APIs feature ‘full fat’ feeds and other content including video, audio and photo galleries. You can combine free text search and combine tags to create feeds based on XML, JSON and Atom. API infrastructure company Mashery also helped build the platform.
The service is free but, Matt McAlister, head of the Guardian Developer Network, said, it is limited to 5000 queries a day, and the payback is that apps developers help build the advertising network, which is still in beta.
Some early examples include Zemanta’s Guardian topic research demo. It’s a simple app that searches the vast database of Guardian articles via its API and then uses Zemanta’s API to get links to related concepts.
There is also Content Tagger, an application to provide user-generated tagging on guardian.co.uk content. ApiMaps.org, built by Stamen Design, is designed to crowdsource geodata about Guardian articles. Cass Sculpture Foundation is using the Open Platform to insert lists of articles from the Guardian about its sculptors into their biography and home pages.
You can register for the API here. Here is what they say about the API:
The Open Platform currently includes two products, the Content API and the Data Store:
1. The Content API is a mechanism for getting Guardian content. You can query our content database for articles and get them back in formats that are geared toward integration with other internet applications.
The Content API is a free service. We have some limits and restrictions detailed in our terms and conditions, but we hope that you will use our service for whatever needs you have, including commercial applications.
2. The Data Store is a collection of important and high quality data sets curated by Guardian journalists. You can find useful data here, download it, and integrate it with other internet applications.
The Data Store has a range of different uses for different types of partners. We will include relevant terms and conditions along with each service.
Our aim is to make the Guardian Open Platform a useful environment for anyone who creates for the internet. We will offer more services in the future such as an ad network and an application platform.
This initial release is a beta trial that will help us identify the ways our partners want to work with us. Access will be granted on a limited basis.

Gasta Mobile news

Mobile social networking grew by 152% between November 2007 and November 2008 in Western Europe, according to ComScore.
The figures show that in November 34% of mobile social network users in Western Europe accessed social media exclusive of all other mobile web content.
The UK has the highest penetration of mobile social networking at 9%, nearly triple that of Germany, where the activity is the least popular at 3.3% penetration. The average penetration rate across all countries is 5%.
Alistair Hill, analyst at ComScore M:Metrics, said, "A large portion of the growth in the mobile internet audience can be attributed to social networking."
"In the UK, for example, the audience of those accessing news and information, but not social networking services, with their mobile browser or an application grew by 149,000 unique users, whereas the number of those exclusively accessing social networking grew by six times that number in the past year."

Gasta.com: Support New Irish Band BabyJenx Growing

Gasta.com are supporting two new bands from Ireland that are tipped for the top, venues and musicheads have been going mad on Myspace and Facebook to download the latest singles from Babyjenx, and The Beat Poets, to get information about these fantastic new and emerging talents, you can find links to both bands on Gasta.tv


About Baby Jenx
BABY JENX

"So beautiful, so intoxicating, so heavenly . . . Gary Reddy's voice reaches soaring glorious falsettos with an ease that would make Thom Yorke envious" – Musician.ie

THE BAND: Gary Reddy – guitar/vocals; Ewen Ferguson Denny - keyboards; Mick Reddy – bass; Graham Carey – drums

THE PAST: Named after a character in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Baby Jenx have been together since the summer of 2005. Influenced by the big stadium sounds of U2, Radiohead and Muse, but with their own musical aesthetic firmly to the fore, they played their debut gig in legendary Dublin venue Mother Redcaps later that same year.
“Thrilling and epic, two words to describe the performance on the night… with melodic grooves and superb vocals on board, this is one act you need to get out and see” - Musicreveiw.com

Over the following months, Baby Jenx honed their live skills with a multitude of gigs. Their sparkling shows at the Irish IMRO showcase, Boston's NEMO Music Festival and Castlepalooza earned them rave reviews.
"... singer Gary Reddy is a natural performer and exceptional singer" – IMRO magazine

They recorded their first demo with producer Declan Lonergan in Bluebird Studios in Co. Kildare. This demo received extensive radio airplay, and was immediately chosen as Hot Press magazine's 'Demo of the Fortnight' by none other than Jackie Hayden (the former CBS boss, known for giving U2 their first record deal).
"The real gem is 'So Long', which opens around a slow staccato piano before it builds with sensitivity and pathos to a real ear-opener" – Jackie Hayden - Hot Press

THE FUTURE: Baby Jenx are currently in studio recording their debut album proper. Entitled “Trial By Fire” it will be released early 2009.

"… the band of this year to hit the music scene, with melodic, streaming vocals and uplifting sounds … you must catch a live gig from these guys, you are missing something special" – Hotpress.com

Gasta News: Music goes portable again.

In a week that will see heavy coverage of MySpace Music when it launches, SanDisk (NSDQ: SNDK) has announced an ambitious venture to sell its microSD memory cards pre-loaded with DRM-fr*ee MP3 music from all the four majors EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The service, dubbed “slotMusic”, will launch this coming holiday season in U.S., at Best Buy and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), among others, and then will be launched in Europe, though no specific timeline was given.

The MicroSD format, a SanDisk invention, is used mainly in mobile phones, and also in some MP3 players. When slotMusic goes on dale, these cards will be packaged with a tiny USB sleeve so that they can be compatible with various PCs and laptops, and any other device with a USB connector, including say an in-car sound system. The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kbps, the company said. With 1GB of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other content that an artist/labels may choose.

There have been previous attempts by SanDisk and others to sell music and content cards through retails, though with limited success.

SanDisk is also in the midst of a takeover attempt by Samsung, which made its $5.85 billion public bid for the company last week, but the company rejected it as too low.

Gasta Branding: Organic Search listings

Purchasing your keywords in InstantAds or SearchMatch on the Gasta and Europasearch network will significantly increase you web presence for the minimum price.

Google has unveiled its first major piece of research to prove search can have a big impact on a company brand . The move could help to drive significantly more brand budget online. The findings, from a pan-European research project commissioned by the search giant, showed coming top of organic listings raised purchase consideration of a brand 4%. It also found exposure to a listing in the top paid position, with no organic listing on the page, increased purchase consideration 20%. The new and (to the tech savvy generation) most important factor in branding your company is to get into search listings and Gasta.com is a really simple and inexpensive way of doing that.

Gasta Tech News: Mobile TV

Mobile TV is not that far away, Gasta.com has been looking at the leading companies that are ready to offer the middlepath software to enable mobile devices to become Mini television recievers.

Mobile TV services are based on two different technologies: the incumbent 3G-based services and the now emerging DVB-H-based services. Axel Technologies' solutions enable mobile TV services based on both technologies. The company's flagship product, Salmonstream Mobile, enables the implementation of full digital mobile TV service based on DVB-H. In addition to comprehensive middleware products, the company develops user interface software that supports several digital television standards.

Gasta Tech News: Mobile Email for the Masses

Mobile Email for the Masses

Until recently, mobile email use has been limited to business users who can afford to buy an expensive smartphone and are willing to accept a costly data plan. But there have been strong signs over the course of 2007 that the age of mobile email for the masses is upon us. The combination of the adoption of industry standards enabling push email on mass market feature phones and affordable service plans is set to make mobile email for the mass market a reality. Evidence of this shift is seen in particular in emerging markets, where fixed-line infrastructure is limited and PC penetration is low, whilst mobile phone penetration is soaring.

The mobile operators in emerging markets now have the opportunity to make the mobile phone the primary method of accessing the internet, with mobile email probably being the most popular application for both business users and consumers. As a result, I can see mobile email consumption in the emerging markets of Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe leapfrogging the 'developed world' in Western Europe and the U.S., which will mostly remain limited to high-end business user email.

However, to make this happen, it is important to use middleware that can support the majority of the mobile phones that are already out there in those markets. Communication only works if it can be sent and received; so, by using standards such as IMAP (LEMONADE), SyncML, and email-to-SMS conversion, we will see email and synchronization services extended to every single mobile phone on the planet.

While we are all drawn to sexy new devices such as the Apple iPhone, the fact is that smartphones represent only a tiny portion of the addressable market. The vast majority of phones in use today (and in the foreseeable future) are mass market feature phones. Therefore, it is essential for service providers to offer push email and synchronization solutions that work well on the phones that are already in users' hands today. In 2008, the time is right for mobile data pricing plans to fall and, as customer numbers increase, we will start to see mobile email becoming the next generation SMS.

*Source: Visiongain Mobile Email Market Report