Gadgets Inspector | Hot Gadgets and Gizmos

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the latest stats show that Gmail users skew younger and richer than those on Yahoo Mail and Hotmail.

Gmail opened up to all comers in February, with Gmail’s market share of US visits climbing 17% from February 2007 to April 2007. However, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are still much bigger by comparison, says Hitwise: Yahoo had 13x the market share, and Hotmail had 6x the marketshare of Gmail.

The good news, if you’re a Gmail user, is that you may be part of the elite: while Yahoo and Hotmail users are decidedly average, Gmail users tend to be young, have a high income, and be early adopters of technology. 54% of users are between 18 and 34, while 18% have an average annual household income between $100,000 and $149,999 (compared to 15% for Hotmail and 13% for Yahoo Mail).

Another stat, probably related to the young age of GMail users: they’re more likely to be Facebook users than those on the other services.

As for performance in the bedroom - well, we kinda lied. In fact, the stats show that solitary Gmail users are far more likely to Google themselves.

[Via mashable.com]

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If you are a regular reader of Entertainment Weekly, then you might have seen the first photo of the upcoming Iron Man film they published last week. The picture got such a huge fan reaction in the blogosphere that Paramount decided to release a high resolution version of the photo.

Jon Favreau (Swingers) will direct Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. (Less Than Zero) has the lead role of Tony Stark/Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges have also been cast in the film. Iron Man is slated to hit theaters on May 2nd 2008.

The high rez photos are definitely worth checking out.

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Maybe it’s something in the air. Maybe they were just having a bad day. Or maybe it was the handful of painkillers they swallowed moments before going on air (right Paula?). But whatever the explanation, weird, awkward interviews seem to be occurring at an ever more frequent rate. The website Double Viking has gathered the top 10 most awkward interview moments of all time.

The list includes such gems as Barbra Walters asking Katherine Hepburn what kind of tree she’d be and Tom Cruise attacking Matt Lauer about Scientology. But by far, my favorite moment is when Vanilla Ice grabs a baseball bat, destroys part of a TV set and makes Jon Stewart crap his pants.

Want to watch these YouTube clips on your iPod? Then check out this tutorial: How to Copy Files Off YouTube and Convert them for your Video iPod

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In 1998, the “Today” show started sending co-host Matt Lauer to far off locations like Mt. Everest and Machu Picchu, for a feature on the show called Where in the World Is Matt Lauer? But this week, American broadcasting network NBC decided to send Matt Lauer somewhere he’d never been before… a microsite. In a clever mashup of entertainment and promotion, Matt Lauer now has his own interactive Flash gaming site (followmatt.com). I blog for a site called Brand Appeal and thought this Matt Lauer microsite deserved a closer look.

Using a fun object-based interface, the site encourages users to explore Matt’s possessions on his desk. You can watch clips on his video iPod, check out his car keys (sponsored by by Hyundai), download themed ringtones from his mobile phone, and see all of the places Matt has traveled to by opening up his passport. Visitors can even use his digital camera to upload a brief video clip explaining why they deserve a vacation. Apparently the best sob story wins a free vacation.

By far, the best part of the microsite is the “Where’s Matt?” game. It’s like an interactive version of the children’s book “Where’s Waldo?” Matt randomly gets inserted into different exotic locations and you have to find him. Do it fast enough and you’ll get your name listed in the top 10. When I last played the game someone named “Imus Sucks” was in 10th place. Obviously a reference to the radio host who recently made racist comments about the Reuters University women’s basketball team. Imus does suck by the way.

Overall, the online experience is great. However, the execution of this site’s design feels a little disjointed. Several components of the site launch in separate windows making the experience feel less contained. Even though I feel a more controlled experience for visitors is needed (like on my blog called Brand Appeal), the site really does a nice job of pushing Matt Lauer’s celebrity brand and attracting more interest in the Today show. Don’t give a crap about a free vacation or ring tones? Me either. But at the very least check out the “Where’s Matt?” game and try to get your name in the top 10. I did. Just once.

by CAM

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Got a special talent or ability? Apparently everyone does. It looks like more ordinary people with ordinary abilities have been discovered. Here’s a clip from the open auditions for the American Sci-Fi series Heroes on NBC.

The clip features some guy pulling a chain out of his nose (burn out), a woman playing the flute with her nose (don’t laugh, that’s someones mom), a guy who can pop beans out of his eye (that’s sexy), an Indian woman who can talk with a perfect Indian dialect (amazing!), a psycho who can stab a potato with a straw (very scary), and more…

I’m pretty sure no one from these open auditions will be saving the world with their “special” talents.

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The (in)famous ‘Get A Mac’ advertising campaign is finally (?) hitting the United Kingdom, Steve Jobs shows how much of a professional he is and has hired two actors (Mitchell and Webb) to perform a special British version of the ad.

We don’t usually write about those things, but since yours truly is an aspiring blogger himself, and i figured out we’ve got to have some webmasters reading this blog, i thought reviewing ReviewMe is quite a good idea.

The concept is simple - Advertisers seeking traffic and linkage will submit their site to be reviewed by one of the blogs listed in the directory, when a blog author approves the review offer, he has 48 hours to post about it.

There are 3 main things i like about ReviewMe:

1. Simple registration & interface - bloggers know if their blogs were accepted to the inventory immediately, they know how well they are ranked, how much is ReviewMe charging for a review on their site and how much will they get for each review they make. It all depends on their rankings, which is set by: Alexa, Technorati, RSS Subscribers and PR.

2. Fairness - Not only that you are not required to say positive things about a site, advertisers are also forbidden from asking you to do so. Your review can be very honest and straightforward, but you should always remember to keep it constructive. You are also required to state that the post is sponsored in some way.

3. Instant money! - ReviewMe allocated $25,000 for promotion, which means that if your blog got accepted, you can start making money instantly by reviewing…RevieMe itself! this means that this post itself is sponsored, and honest in the same time.

This project is created by the same guy who also formulated the excellent Text Link Ads, a service offering both average and high trafficked sites decent monetization, check it out as well.

IMPORTANT update: dot com mogul John Chow has found some flaws in the ReviewMe system, you may want to check them out.

Zamzar is a site that should have been around for a very long time now, there always have been sites that cover only one field of formats, music, images, or video formats. Zamzar offers conversions to all file formats out there, and in all fields.

Those of you who convert file formats will find it very useful, as the uploading and converting process is very simple and straightforward.

Visit Zamzar [zamzar.com]

In not a very surprising move, Google announced that they will start sharing ad revenue with some talented video makers. The first to get the honor of getting major payments by Google are Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, makers of “The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment”.

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Other than the features copied from Firefox like Built in RSS reader, tabbed browsing and (supposedly) better security , IE7 brings some good news to web designers, it is now more standards compliant, still far from Firefox in this field though.