(* Source:News.com *)

Harrison Hoffman says :

Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. Dave has expressed an interest in helping out students and connecting with alumni. He also knows one of your friends, went to your school, and shares a common interest with you. That's a really powerful networking tool. Presenting specific connections like this really adds a whole new value to this job network.

Aside from showing your "in," company pages also provide some useful information about the company as a whole, broken down into key points such as industry, size, location, contact, and description. Anyone who is connected in any way with that company is also displayed.

As you might also expect, everyone who signs up on Yahoo Kickstart gets their own profile page where they can build a mini resume and add a quotation to give the profile a more personal feel. Everything here is pretty standard for a social network, but there is a definite professional focus, much like LinkedIn. The personal profile isn't anything revolutionary, but it certainly gets the job done in this situation.

The third and final main component to Kickstart is the university page. This is very similar to what Facebook does with their "network" pages. It displays some basic information about the school and provides space for discussions, bulletins, and events.

Yahoo Kickstart is currently a concept and is being researched, so the things that you see in these screenshots may or may not make it into the final product. When I asked Yahoo for a comment on the service, they responded by saying,

"...We're continually checking the pulse on customer response to potential concepts on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes our research leads to the development of new product offerings, but not all concepts we research are formally developed and rolled out to our larger audience.

I personally think that Kickstart is a really solid concept and that it's a possible game changer in the professional networking space. Hopefully we'll see Yahoo kickstarting some careers in the near future.

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(* Source: Mobinode *)

as spotted by Frederic Guillet

After nearly 23 month intensive development, another large scale 3D virtual world - Novoking is finally unveiled. We are not sure yet how this new virtual world will stand out in this hottest market, but we do believe the release of Novoking will further drive the popularity of 3D virtual world raised by Second Life, There and HiPiHi.

Founded by a very experienced entrepreneur Mr. Patrick Zha in Oct 2005, Novoking is designed and operated by Novoking (Beijing) technology Limited Co. You believe or not, its 50 people-team has been working day in and day out quietly in a small office in ZhongGuanCun Technology Park, the incubator of many China IT companies, for nearly 2 years.

The Novoking’s target user group is 16-35 years old Internet generation, especially female group (It might remind you of another girl’s virtual world, Frenzoo). Seeking for a enjoyable life is the key theme for this group of people, and we were told that Novoking would provide an on-line virtual social platform to the youngsters to express, entertain themselves, and make new friends just like in the real life. Unlike SecondLife and HiPiHi, Novoking will ‘prepare’ the discotheque, bar, night-club, fashion show, furniture show, pets shop and games, to let the beginners feel ‘busy’ with trying different new things since the first day they live in, experience the new virtual live and form the resident sociality quickly.

According to the reliable source, Novoking will launch its private beta test in this September, and it is expected to be open to public in 6 months after the beta test.

We are really impressed by the screenshots from Novoking’s world. The full collection of these screenshots can be browsed on Flickr.

A comprehensive interview with Novoking will be presented here shortly. Stay tuned!

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(* Source: TechCrunch *) 

Mike says... 

The Twitter team must have had a Red Bull machine installed at the offices, because suddenly they’re launching new stuff left and right.

They recently added search and Gmail import features to the service. And on Friday they are launching a new area of the site called “Explore” where they’ll list some of the tools people can use to interact with Twitter off the site itself. Along with Explore they will also be releasing a new visualization tool called Twitter Blocks - “an abstract way to navigate your Twitter neighborhood or block.

Twitter sent us these screen shots but we haven’t had a chance to see it in action yet. Cofounder Biz Stone says “It’s a crazy, interactive, animated 3D application so it’s easier to understand when you interact with it.”

Twitter brought in Stamen Design to help with the project, the same team behind some of the Digg visualization tools launched last year.

Motorola is sponsoring the new Explore site. Screen shots below:

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(* Source: PSFK *)

Christine Huang says :

South Korea’s Shinsegae Department Store is planning on opening the world’s first “advanced virtual reality fashion store,” where customers will be able to use a smart card holding an avatar of themselves (with their real dimensions) that can be used to try on items in the virtual shop and even get them custom-fit. According to iFashion, the virtual store and fitting room site, the joint project between the Clothing Technical Centre at Konkuk University and clothing manufacturer FnC Kolon Corp with support from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy aims to revolutionize virtual and online shopping. Jung Dong-chang, head of the Ministry’s textile industry team, claims that “anyone with this card will be able to easily try on and buy clothes using mobile phones and computers,” and that people with access to others’ smart cards could easily gift their loved ones with clothing without having to worry they’ll be the wrong fit. The project is still in the experimental stage, according to iFashion, but FnC Kolon hopes to have its virtual shop open by November.

[via Communities Dominate Brands Blog]

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(* Source : Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says:

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(* Source: Reuters *)

Sprawling virtual worlds in which electronic avatars do battle with mythical beasts may offer game publishers a unique chance to combat piracy, especially in Asia, where the format is wildly popular.

On Thursday, the video game industry gathered at Europe's largest games convention in Leipzig to tantalize the 200,000 expected visitors with upcoming offerings that include an array of new MMOs--massively multi-user online games.

Players usually have to buy the software to play the game, a model that invites bootleggers to get a cut of the action, so publishers are increasingly looking to offer the software for free.

Instead of paying 150 euros ($205) to buy a permanent membership to the Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar gaming world, for example, companies would then charge only for performance enhancements each time a player wants to upgrade his online alter-ego.

Speaking on the sidelines of the GC, Ubisoft's Chief Executive Yves Guillemot raved about the prospects of the genre and in particular this new form of "MMO-lite" for avid gamers.

"They all have the ability to get it, and if they want to progress you can sell (enhancements) to them," he told Reuters.

Chinese companies like Nasdaq-listed CDC and Shanda Interactive Entertainment helped pioneer this revenue model with their MMOs Yulong and Legend of Mir II in 2005.

Electronic Arts said the enhancement-based model was certainly the best strategy for Asia, where the online gaming market is more than $3 billion and there is virtually no demand for protected games software due to rampant copy infringement.

"We had many people playing but nobody paying. The online games drive the pirate out of the business," said Gerhard Florin, general manager of international publishing at the world's largest video games company.

More here 

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(* Source: Reuters *)

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In a move that further shapes its image as an MTV-like pop-culture hub as well as a social network, News Corp.'s MySpace.com has announced that it will be sponsoring a concert tour this fall.

Appropriately called the MySpace Music Tour, the series of shows will kick off October 16 in Seattle and will host more than 30 performances before winding down in Las Vegas around Thanksgiving.

The headlining acts for the tour will be two artists who have built up large followings on the social-networking site--geeky pop band Hellogoodbye and emo act Say Anything.

The tour will also include the Japanese punk band Polysics, which has been signed to the new MySpace Records label, as well as yet-to-be-announced guests.

In a statement from the company, Say Anything frontman Max Bemis is quoted as saying, "We are stoked as beans to be on the first MySpace tour with Hellogoodbye!! It's going to rock!"

MySpace users will be able to prepurchase tickets starting Friday. Those who are not MySpace members will have to wait until September 6.

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 (*Source: Newyorktimes *)

Eric Pfanner says :

LONDON, Aug. 26 — Two weeks ago, a Facebook member in Manchester, England, added her name to an online campaign to bring back a chocolate bar called Wispa, discontinued by its maker, Cadbury, four years ago.

Cadbury will reintroduce the Wispa chocolate bar after nearly 14,000 people joined an Internet campaign to bring it back.

“Ive just signed petition-my life not the same since its gone I really do thik about them all the time — bring them back pleasssssssseeeeeeeee,” she wrote.

Users of Facebook, the social networking service, make up for any shortcomings in spelling, grammar and punctuation with their sheer numbers. After nearly 14,000 people joined “bring back Wispa” groups on Facebook, the food conglomerate Cadbury Schweppes announced on Aug. 17 that it would reintroduce the candy bar in October.

Companies everywhere are monitoring blogs and other online discussions for feedback on their brands and providing them with information about coming products, as well as placing so-called viral advertisements on video-sharing sites. But the company insisted that the expressions of affection for Wispa on the Internet were genuine.

The campaign for Wispa, and the decision by Cadbury to revive it, shows what can happen when nostalgia about lost brands converges with user-generated content and social networking sites.

“This is the first time that the power of the Internet played such an intrinsic role in the return of a Cadbury brand,” the company said.

Cadbury said it had identified 93 user groups on Facebook calling for a return of Wispa. Fans posted video clips from 1980s advertisements for Wispa, featuring stars of British television shows like “Hi-de-Hi!” and “Yes Minister,” on YouTube, the video-sharing Web site.

Thousands of other consumers joined online petitions. One of these, on a Web site that also plays host to campaigns to draft Al Gore to run for president, close fur factories in China, and shut down the Federal Reserve, implored, “Together we can make the world of chocolate a better place!”

During the Glastonbury music festival in June, a group of Wispa fans stormed the stage while Iggy Pop was performing and displayed a banner reading, “Bring Back Wispa.”

As Cadbury deals with the aftermath of a scare over salmonella contamination of some of its chocolate bars, and struggles with a plan to sell or split off its United States soft drink business, Wispa gives the company a feel-good public relations diversion.

More here 

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(* Source:Newyorktimes *)

Eric Pfanner says: 

Nokia, via Reuters

Songs can be put onto Nokia’s new phone, the N81, without using a computer, a feature the Apple iPhone does not offer.

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(* Source:Onlinemediadaily *)

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(* Source: Onlinemediadaily *)

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(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says :

JamStudio has created a music widget for your MySpace page, letting site visitors mix music directly from your profile.

With this interactive widget, other users can remix the song you’ve created from your JamStudio account. You can change several levels of instrumentals in the song, including the guitar, piano, bass, drums, and more. Switch up the tempo or choose which instrument you’d like to play the melody of your song, sending the other instruments to the background.

Tools like these are great starters for online collaboration around music, and coupled with a music-centric website like MySpace, these tools could really take off. While site visitors can personalize the remix to their own likings, there’s no way to save remixes, or continue your tweaks on the main JamStudio site. Although, future features will incorporate the ability for vocals to be added to JamStudio creations, which will hopefully be integrated with the MySpace widget as well. Soundcrank is another company that has released a music MySpace widget today.

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(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says :

Stardoll, the virtual paper doll social network, has reached a milestone with the registration of 10 million members.

Reported by comScore as being the number one site for girls age 9 to 17, Stardoll has definitely become a hub for teenage activity online. To celebrate this achievement, Hilary Duff is welcoming the 10 millionth member with a personal video congratulation, and a Stardoll expert stylist will work with that same member to personalize their suite and build up their virtual wardrobe. This lucky member will also get 1000 stardollars for buying virtual fashion goods on the site, and will be featured on the site’s homepage and magazine. All Stardoll members will get virtual goodie bags full of prizes, including perfume, chocolates, and Seventeen’s current issue.

With Stardoll recently launching real brand fashion boutiques in its online virtual world, it’s no wonder that the site has done so well for itself. The level of integration between the real and virtual world is appealing to teens and tweens, and is proving a good breeding ground for particular marketing campaigns as well.

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(* Source: TheAge.com.au *)

A new Nintendo game helps players exercise their facial muscles to have nicer smiles and livelier expressions.

Nintendo DS players in Japan can now exercise their facial muscles to have nicer smiles and livelier expressions.

A digital camera that comes with the new Face Training game fits into the dual-screen, handheld machine to show live video of the player's own face on the right screen while an animation of a woman's face illustrates exercises on the left screen.

The 16 types of exercises called "facening", designed by beauty expert Fumiko Inudo, take about two to 10 minutes each to complete.

Nintendo, the Kyoto-based maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games, recommends playing Face Training no longer than 15 minutes at a time to avoid over exerting face muscles or getting them "out of balance".

Besides the animation that serves as a model for players, an electronic voice resembling an aerobics instructor guides you to twist your mouth, drop your jaw, wink, glare at the ceiling and perform other moves to tighten flabby cheeks and develop that bright-eyed look.

"Open your mouth slightly, one, two, three, four," the machine says during one exercise.

The game went on sale last week in Japan. Overseas sales plans are still undecided.

The new game is part of Nintendo's efforts to appeal to a wider audience, including women. Nintendo has scored success with its drill-like games, such as Brain Age.

Nintendo's Wii console, which comes with a motion-sensitive remote control for playing virtual tennis and other games, is also doing well. Nearly 9.3 million units have been sold worldwide since its launch seven months ago.

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(* Source: Duncan Riley *)

Google asked the question, and found out.

Google received over 1,100 submissions for the collaborative effort.

It reminds me a little bit of Ze Frank’s (what ever happened to him BTW?) Video for Ray project earlier this year. The exercise just goes to prove that tapping into passionate users can deliver; over 1,000 people world wide took time out to video and upload their love of Gmail, with no incentive to do so other than perhaps a 2 second chance of fame. Cheap labor perhaps, but it’s a resource than can and is being tapped.

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(* Source: News.com *)

Caroline McCarthy says: 

Embeddable widget powerhouse Slide gained buzz as a way to display photo slide shows on MySpace, but then saw meteoric growth as part of the Facebook Platform initiative. Now, the company has announced that 1 million of its Flash-based widgets are added to the network's servers every day for non-Facebook social media platforms. Slide's Facebook widgets, which rank No. 1, No. 2, and No. 6 on the list of most popular embeddable applications on the white-hot social network, are not Flash-based and consequently were not included in the tally.

Note that this refers to widgets created, not "installed" or "embedded," necessarily--presumably, if you create a widget that's ultimately a screw-up, that counts too.

Still, that's a lot of widgets. Slide offers its standard SlideShow widget as well as other widgets like Guestbook, SkinFlix, and FunPix. The company has also snapped up independently created Facebook widgets, most notably "Favorite Peeps." According to ComScore, Slide widgets pull in more than 134 million unique viewers per month. (Millions of widgets, widgets for free.)

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(*Source: BusinessWeek *)

Reena Jana says:

The social-networking site's new fashion community might benefit big, established brands and fledgling designers alike

Since its launch in 2003, social-networking site MySpace (NWS) has been associated with music fans, as well as teens and twentysomethings seeking to meet or contact friends online, but now the site hopes to court another trendy group: fashionistas. On Aug. 28, MySpace launches a fashion community just in time for the spring 2008 runway shows that will take place during New York's Fashion Week, Sept. 5-12.

The move reflects MySpace's strategy of identifying the communities of interest that have grown organically and the building official member communities around them, turning once-grassroots groups into content platforms for old-media companies and consumer brands. But will the top-down approach work? And if so, who will be the big winners—the established corporations or the unknown designers trying to make their names among peer-driven social networks?

Pairing Partner and User Content

These are the questions that surround MySpace's fashion community, whose no-frills beta-version launch last September was timed to coincide with the 2006 New York Fashion Week shows. The new, redesigned landing page is appropriately stylish. It features a highly textured set of images, including a price-tag graphic featuring a daily fashion trend and tactile images of fabric swatches. In addition, a series of video screens of varying shapes shows interviews with bands and stars—including actress/musician Hilary Duff—who talk about their own dressing habits. Slick content from big-media partners such as InStyle magazine, including behind-the-scenes footage of photo shoots and how-to guides for applying makeup, is positioned near user-generated videos submitted by aspiring designers.

More here 

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(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says:

BandsInTown, the network that lets you find and track bands you’re interested in, has undergone a major update to its site, incorporating several new features in order to make it more of a social network for friends. Read our initial review here.

With the ability to add friends, send private messages, leave comments on user profiles, events and venue pages, there are more ways in which users can gain first-hand information regarding the bands and events they’re interested in, while also making new friends. All users now have profile pages where they can share information about themselves, like their top favorite artists and their top friends.

A new BandsInTown widget displays the events you’ve added to your calendar. It can also show events that are specific to venues or artists. Record labels utilizing this widget can display an artist’s tour dates and locations. This widget can be placed on your blog, or social networking profile, like MySpace, hi5 or Piczo. Equally as important, more ticket sources have been added to BandsInTown, along with RSS feeds for each user, artist, and venue calendar.

As BandsInTown was already a good tool for finding and tracking artists and venues you’re interested in, based on a variety of search parameters, incorporating these social networking components will better allow the users to help each other in an online community. This gives it an advantage over sites and communities that rely too much on promoters and user-generated content for the provision of data, but still enables users to enhance the site with personal contributions. In related news, Oodle’s BandTracker has officially launched earlier this month.

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(* Source: Labelnetworks *)

McDonald’s has been moving into new realms including video gaming and music in the last few months. Starting with sponsoring a music tour this summer in North America, which we discovered in Venice Beach, CA, featuring Neyo, they’ve ventured off their beaten path and joined the crowds of concert sponsorship. And now in Japan, McDonald’s is offering up basic, colorful video game toys with Happy Meals. But it’s not necessarily the little kids who are lovin’ it most, but rather collectors of toys and urban vinyl dolls, as well as sneakerheads.

There are 6 different video game Happy Meals called the “Happy Set” including PK Soccer, Rhythmic Dance, Bike Racing, Bowling, Music Drum, and F1 Racing. Like an LTD drop of sneakers in Tokyo, these games have quickly become a must-have item among a similar subculture—especially as the promotion ends September 6th.

This promo is also going on at the same time as a Hello Kitty collaboration McDonald’s has having in the States, which has captured the fascination of collectors as well. Obviously it’s a cross-cultural thing, but taps into the fascination American’s have for Japanese Hello Kitty, and that Japanese have for hand-held video gaming systems.

 

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(* Source: eMarketer *) 

The Web is effective, but some find it intrusive.

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(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

Mike says..

Online photo editors keep getting better and better. For hardcore image manipulation, desktop software like Photoshop or Gimp will always have its place, but online editors are free, easy to use and a lot of fun. We covered most of the online editors back in February (Fauxto, Picnik, Picture2Life, Preloadr, PXN8 and Snipshot). But a relative newcomer on the scene, Berkeley-based FotoFlexer, is worth a look.

The site first launched in July with basic functionality and integration with Facebook. This last week they relaunched a new site with more tools, direct access to your desktop/laptop webcam, and they also now integrate with Flickr, Picasa and MySpace.

Upload a photo, or grab one from a supported service, and edit it by changing colors, adding effects, bulging or pinching areas (to make body parts look larger or smaller), etc. You can also turn any image into a sketch or cartoon. I spent about 10 minutes creating the different versions of the picture to the right (original is top left). The most fun is changing hair color, although the image third down on the left is my personal favorite.

Fotoflexer says they incorporate their own artificial intelligence algorithm to figure out the right way to alter images. And whatever it is they’re doing, it works. You simply point out a few areas of the site you want to remove or alter and it figures out the rest of the pixels pretty quickly. You can do all of this in Photoshop, but it takes a lot longer. And unlike most (but not all) of the online photo editing tools we’ve previously covered, FotoFlexer also supports layering for more complicated image editing.

FotoFlexer also now integrates directly to your webcam and to take a quick snapshot and edit it. Many of the effects are similar to the Photo Booth application that comes installed on all Macs.

The integration with third party services is a great feature as well. Pull down photos from Facebook or another service, alter them and re-upload in a few minutes.

The service runs in Flash and was built on the Flex platform with mostly custom tools. The company has not raised any capital and has 15 employees, all in the Silicon Valley/Bay area. About 50,000 people use their Facebook application and/or the website directly. I expect that number to grow as social networkers discover the joy of turning their pictures into cartoons, or turning their hair color to Fuchsia.

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(* Source: Reuters *)

Anthony Bruno says:

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(* Source: BusinessWeek *)

Neal Sandler says:

The startup proposes video sharing on mobile handsets—already, Universal Music Group is on board

The idea for his new startup came to Jon Medved two years ago at London's Heathrow Airport when he was trying to reach the Hertz (HTZ) call center. While waiting on hold, the Israeli venture capitalist was forced to listen to audio ads from Hertz about the various cars available. It suddenly struck Medved that it would be far more effective for Hertz to serve up images or even videos of cars.

Thus was born the idea behind Vringo, a startup launched last year by Medved and David Goldfarb, a leading Israeli mobile software expert. The idea is to capitalize on the popularity of social networks and digital video, marrying them with the phenomenon of downloadable audio ringtones—a business that already racks up $6 billion in annual revenues for mobile operators and content owners worldwide. Medved describes Vringo as a "sort of ICQ [instant messaging] combined with a personalized YouTube (GOOG) on your cell phone."

With conventional audio ringtones, customers download a short music clip—say, the theme to Hawaii Five-O—onto their own phones. Whenever somebody calls, the song plays instead of a regular ring. Aside from some possibly annoyed people in the vicinity, the only person who enjoys it is the owner of the phone.

Vringo Defined

Vringo's video ringtones turn that model on its ear. To use the service, customers join the Vringo community for free and install a small piece of software onto their phones. Then, when one Vringo member calls another, instead of a ringtone, the recipient of the call is treated to a video clip chosen (and paid for) by the sender. Every call thus becomes an opportunity to share content and to establish identity—the wireless equivalent of the "hey, dude, check out this YouTube video" culture of the Internet.

If it catches on, Vringo has the potential to be about far more than just sharing clips, though. Advertisers are intrigued by the idea of using mobile phones to pitch their products; Vringo offers the possibility of adding viral marketing to the mix—essentially, having enthusiastic consumers spread the word for you. What's in it for Vringo users? Instead of paying for a clip, a caller might get five minutes of free talk time for sending his buddies copies of a new ad.

More here 

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(* Source: MAshable *)

Joshua Ho says :

What do you do with all of those pictures on your camera phone? First you have to get the pictures off of your phone; Take out the card? Email it to yourself? Got bluetooth? USB? IR? You’re probably already annoyed just thinking about it. Here are resources that help you easily post and share those mobile photos gems.

Direct Distribution To Social Sites

ShoZu - Easily move photos, videos and music on and off your phone. Share them with just about every major photo hosting and blogging site.
Cellblock - Create your own “cellblock” to receive photos and videos from your phone or anyone else’s you allow. View them all from your phone.
Treemo - Upload your photos, videos, and audio right from your phone to your treemo profile. Subscribe to your friend’s channels to be updated when new content is posted.
Pickle - Pickle becomes the central spot to upload your mobile photos and videos then distributes your content to share through your own channels.
PixPulse - Upload photos into your PixPulse created channel and have them show up in your other blogs and social sites.
Phozi - Use your mobile phone as a photo booth. Send in your photo, add graphics and drawings layered on top, then embed them into your social sites.

Full Mobile Applications

PixSense - Share and manage your mobile photos through the PixSense mobile application.
Sharpcast - Automatically sync your photos from your Windows Mobile 5.0 phone to the web.
Yahoo! Go Flickr - Access all your major Flickr functions through Yahoo! Go mobile application. Upload, access photos, tag, change privacy, and comment.
Radar - Upload, share and comment on yours and your friend’s photos. Access through both WAP and mobile application.
WebFives - Share your photos and videos, use the mobile application to manage all of your content.
JuiceCaster - Use the Juicecaster mobile application to send and share all your media from your phone.

Photo Blogs

Xanco - Mobile weblog that take mobile photo and video submissions.
Magnoto - Unique blog where you can move your content around like a refrigerator door. Photos and posts can be emailed in directly from your phone.
MobyPicture - Post your pictures from your phone to your moblog.
Pikki - Photo blogging from your phone. Join interesting photo challenges and vote public on public photos.
Phlog - Easy photo sharing. Send your photos in from your mobile device and it is automatically shared online under your username.
mostrips - Create a story to share with mobile phones by creating a mostrip.
LifeLogger Mobile - Log your photos, videos and audio clips to LifeLogger and access it via the WAP enabled site.
BusyThumbs - Mobile blogging of photos and text from your phone.
YourVids - Full WAP site for sharing your photos and videos.

Photo Albums

AOL Pictures Mobile - Use your phone as a photo album. Access the WAP site to view your pictures from your mobile device.
Webshots - Upload unlimited photos and videos into your web albums from your phone.
SnapZone - Instantly share your photos by sending your mobile photos into SnapZone.
Photobucket - Upload mobile photos to your account through your album email address. Create wallpapers for your specific phone and send them to yourself.
fotoki - Upload mobile photos to your account through MMS to a user specific email address.
Kodak Gallery - Send photos to your gallery from your mobile phone or download and share the photos from your gallery.
Google Picassa Mobile Access - Easily page through and search your Picassa albums.
MyPhotoAlbum.com - Upload photos to your album directly from your phone.
SnapFish - Send in your mobile photos directly from your phone to be printed or shared.

Photo Push to Mobile

PixDrop - Send picture messages to your friends mobile phones from your PC for free. No registration required.
GotZapp - Send all your shared photos to your friend’s mobile phones in one shot.
burstcast - Submit your photos from your mobile phone to share on burstcast.
Veeker - Submit photos or videos and have them instantly shared with yourself, a friend or the whole Veeker Community.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: MAshable *)

Peter Cashmore says :

Sites like Last.fm, iLike and Pandora caught on quick thanks to their offer of free music. A new launch today is aiming slightly lower: it’s a Last.fm for music samples.

MusicSamplr lets you listen to samples of songs you might want to buy, then click through to buy them on Amazon. For each artists, it suggests 8 more artists you might want to browse. The founder claims the recommendations are based on community actions.

The design is nice and the interaction is slick, but the fact that you only get a small sample of each track is infuriating: this would be better as a visual addition to Amazon.com than a standalone site. As such, it probably won’t last.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Webwire *)

Sveinn Johannsson recently announced the launch of his new uVme site www.online-game-of-skill.com. The site is based on a revolutionary concept that plans to join social networking, online gaming and network marketing into a unique blend of fun and marketing. Although a relatively new concept uVme is poised to take the internet by storm. Designed to allow people to host an online game and earn money every time a user enrols and plays a game online, uVme has already been marked as the biggest network marketing concept in the last 40 years.

Speaking on the launch of his site Sveinn Johannsson had this to say “uVme is such an amazing concept its surprising no one thought of it before. Essentially uVme combines social networking, online gaming and network marketing so seamlessly it is simply astounding. With uVme you can have your own blog; your own bio and users get paid to invite new friends to play online games! Network marketing has never been so much fun”

As of 15th July 2007, 200,000 people had already pre-registered to become members of the uVme concept. Conservative estimates put the average monthly income from an uVme site close to £20,000. The concept is so unique that players actually get paid every time someone they enrol plays a game online.

Elaborating on the uVme concept Sveinn Johannsson said “I have worked with other network marketing and social networking concepts in the past, but no single concept has put together so many features in such a compact package. In fact I am pretty confident that uVme is the only concept where people get paid down to 7 generations and Virtual World Direct is planning to pay out 70% of its revenue to associates”

Sveinn Johannsson further elaborated on the concept of uVme “The best part about uVme is that there is no software to download, no lengthy sales brochures to endure and most of all people actually get paid for having fun. The moment I read about uVme I was excited and once I knew more about it, I was so confident about uVme that I decided to launch online-game-of-skill.com.”

With social networking sites becoming house hold names, uVme is expected to take the social networking world by storm. Already online gaming communities have achieved cult status and sites like www.online-game-of-skill.com are expected to add value to online gaming.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

Mike says... 

YouBeQB is a new Football game playing site that will snatch up even more time from fantasy sports junkies (see Screaming Sports and FleaFlicker for examples of some of the new thinking around fantasy sports).

Watch a game on TV and play along against other players by trying to predict the next play. Users can follow professional or college games. Points are awarded for each correct play called, as well as consecutive correct calls.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *) 

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

Michael says... 

The New York Times took their personalized home page product out of beta today - see it . The look and feel is about the same as it was a a year ago when it - Think , or , with the New York Times logo and without the widgets.

There’s an argument that the product will bring customized home pages to the masses, although frankly Yahoo has already done a good job of this with well over 50 million users. This will be particularly useful for people who live, eat and breathe the New York Times, but others may find it a bit much.

Users can also add pre-selected non-NYT content or their own favorite RSS feeds, and modules can be dragged around the page, just like every other customizable home page.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *) 

Another great compliation by the Mashable Team...

(* Source: Mashable *) 

Another great compliation by the Mashable Team!

Stickam - The best site for live video communications with multiple people. There is no major competition for Stickam just yet.
Blogtv - Blogtv is a recent discovery to the public.  It allows you to do a live video show, and you can stream it live, as well as archive it for later use.
ooVoo - This allows you to carry on video conversations with live video through a Skype-like program.
Mogulus - This site is basically an all in one broadcast solution for video.  You can create, edit, and add things similar to broadcast companies could add.
Ustream - Allows you to stream live video and you can also embed the player in to your own website.
HeyCosmo - A downloadable application that allows you to connect with other people in many ways, even play games and more.
Operator11 - Go live with your camera and create your own channels. You can also send video comments and remix your videos.

Online Video How-to

Better YT Video Quality - This guide helps you with getting the best possible video quality on YouTube, can be applied to other sites as well.
Make Internet TV - This guide has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing videos on the Internet.
How to put your readers at the scene - A scene-setting guide for online web journalists.
Tips for shooting better online video - learn the equipment, shooting and editing basics from this collection of tips.
Online video tips - a Squidoo lens with several useful online video shooting and editing tips.
Home video tips - Chris Pirillo’s tips for shooting better videos at home.
Camcorderinfo - Every online video comes from a camcorder, so here is the best place to get opinions on your next camcorder purchase.
5 Ways To Create a Great Video Podcast - A great article that applies to both video podcasts and video production in general.

Online Video Editors

Eyespot - add effects and transitions to the videos you upload, or use some of the large amount of free video clips and music from Eyespot’s media partners.
MuveeMix - Upload your movie, mix it with music, add cool effects and share it on MySpace, Friendster, Blogger, and other networks.
Motionbox - This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.
Cuts - Insert sound effects in your videos, add captions, loop the best parts and in minutes you can share your creation with the world.
JumpCut - a free service that enables you to upload, edit and share your videos. Offers keyframe-based editing, effects, transitions and actions.
VideoEgg - A video editing platform that you can add to create a social network and offers opportunities for monetization.
Mojiti - Select videos from popular video sharing sites, personalize them with your annotations and share them with others.
Photobucket - Edit videos within a browser using Flash and remix photos and home videos with other elements, such as music, video captions and transitions.
StashSpace - Upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.
BubblePly - Video annotating service where anyone can add text bubbles that are synchronized with video.
Veotag - Service that lets you display clickable text, called “veotags,” within an audio or video file.
Vidavee Grafitti - add graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.
Vmix - Vmix is a community and a hosting provider for your videos, aimed at creative authors who want to create remixes of their music and videos.
MovieMasher - a combination of a video editor with a timeline and lots of various effects, a standalone player and a media browser.
MixerCast - Mix your media with professional video, images, music, and network your MixerCast everywhere.
Fliptrack - Make a free musical photo slideshow and music video. It’s easy to do and you do it online.

Online Video Converters

Zamzar - converts all sorts of file formats, including several video formats.
Media Convert - a media converter with a huge amount of options; resulting videos can sometimes be out of sync with audio.
Vixy - a simple converter that can only convert Flash apps from the web to several other video formats.
Hey Watch! - an online video converter focusing on file formats that works on portable multimedia devices, like the iPod.
MediaConverter - a video converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.
Movavi - another video converter that allows you to upload videos and convert them to formats you wish to use.

Video sharing

YouTube - YouTube is the king of the video sharing sites, it has more users and videos than the others. Any video you can think of it probably already on YouTube.
Google Video - Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. Also there is a search here that indexes all of the video sharing sites on the internet (well, most of them).
Blip.tv - Blip.tv is the perfect video sharing site for video podcast makers. It’s designed to let them easily upload all types and qualities of media and then send them to their feed for the users. They also let you add ads to you video so you can make some money.
Ourmedia - A great site where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.
Veoh - Watch long form, television quality content and publish your own videos.
DailyMotion - Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. You can join groups of people who publish videos based on a common interest.
Metacafe - A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day.
UnCut - Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embed all the videos you want in your blog.
ClipShack - video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips.
5min - Video sharing site with a particular vision: collecting videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Brightcove - Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.
Viddler - Viddler lets add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.
Revver - The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn money from the videos they upload.
Vimeo - Vimeo is a video sharing site that has an emphasis on it’s users. The video’s you find there are more likely to be home movies or shorts by aspiring film makers, and also a lot of lip dubs.
Yahoo Video - Yahoo’s version of online video.  Similar to Google video, but done the Yahoo way.
HelpfulVideo - Share your knowledge and skills with others for free or little charge via video clips.
BroadbandSports - A video sharing site specifically for sharing sports related videos.
Travelistic - A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
Livevideo - Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world.
Kewego - A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.
Godtube - It’s a Christian version of YouTube.  All things Christian welcomed.
Coull.tv - An interactive twist to video, this site allows you to view video and add interactive elements to it by using your mouse.
Mediabum - Video sharing site focusing on funny videos.
VMIX - Another video sharing website; All content is screened, so be sure everything you upload is legit.
Grouper - Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and easily upload videos to MySpace.
Break - Break is a video site and more for comedic based content.
Videosift - a Digg-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.
GeeVee - GeeVee is a video sharing site specifically for sharing videos of game play in video games.
Stage6 - A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, of course this also means longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).
Tube Battle - vote for the best videos, organized by category.

Video hosting

TinyPic - Host videos and images for free; it is possible to upload videos in the most popular formats and link videos on MySpace, eBay, blogs and message boards
Vidilife - Upload videos and store them online. There is no limit in terms of length of the files you can upload.
Dropshots - Good site that lets you upload videos, share them and embed them on other sites.
ZippyVideos - Upload and store video files (maximum 20 MB) in the most popular video formats.
Supload - Free service to host video clips and images. Maximum video file size allowed is 20 MB.
Rupid - Another provider of free video hosting: you can host your videos and share them with others.
Pixilive - Free images and video hosting for MySpace, eBay, Facebook and other sites. Maximum size for videos is 10 MB.
Mydeo - store and stream your videos online. You will be able to embed a video on any website and send streaming video messages .
YourFileHost - Upload files anonymously and share them with others. You can upload any file format up to 25 MB.

Video organization and management

Aggrega - create and organize your own music video channels and share them with others.
Feedbeat - a fantastic service that lets you create playlists with videos from different sources - YouTube, Google Video and others. Each playlist gets its own subdomain on feedbeat.net.
Ajaxilicious - an online movie catalogue which enables you to manage your movies and share them with others via RSS.
Cliproller - create custom video channels and add as many as you like to your personal Cliproller page.
CozmoTV - CozmoTV is a site that allows you to create and organize channels of video already existing online.

Vidcasts & vlogging

BlogCheese - a simple way to create and share a video blog - all you need is a webcam.
Revision3 - A video podcasting network that’s home to many well made video podcasts, including Diggnation, which is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about the top stories on Digg.
Jabbits - Social video blogging: Use your webcam to record your Post or Jab with an easy-to-use recorder.
Ask a Ninja - got questions? Ask a ninja! One of the most popular vidcasts in the world, and definitely the funniest.
Galacticast - a weekly Sci-fi comedy podcast, episodes usually consists of lots of really geeky parodies.
Scriggity - A news podcast, where the viewers send in the news that they think should be on the shows.
SuperDeluxe - A site to find videos that focus mainly on comedic content.
DL.TV - Some of the the old TechTV crew back at it again with their own own show on all things tech.  One of the best video podcasts for tech geeks.
Webnation - Amber Mac’s bi-weekly video podcast with news and interviews relating to current events in the tech world.
Tom Green’s the Channel - A daily video podcast that is recorded live and is hosted by Tom Green. He usually has a celebrity guest on the show.
GeekBrief TV - a daily podcast hosted by Cali Lewis, it’s a 3-5 minute update on the latest tech news.
This Week in Tech - famous tech vidcast by Leo Laporte, one of the most viewed vidcasts in the world.
The Broken - tech show for teh 1337 h4×0rz.
Digg Podcasts - a long list of popular podcasts, containing most of the vidcasts on this list and many more.

Video mashups

Virtual Video Map - YouTube videos on a Google map. Find out where do all those cool videos come from.
RealPeopleStuff - a site that combines CraigsList and YouTube, offering video clips related to ads.
TagTV - enter a tag and get results from Flickr and YouTube. Clean and simple design makes TagTV a very neat way to browse photos and videos.
I Love Music Video - combines YouTube with info from your Last.FM account. Great way to get videos (at least until Last.FM signs an evil deal with all those content providers and starts offering music videos).
MusicPortl - information on bands and musicians containing biographies, Flickr images, related blog posts and YouTube videos.
Magg - aggregates videos from several video sites. Also works as a search engine.
RateMyDanceMoves - Hot or Not-style site, presenting you dance-related YouTube videos to vote on.
ReviewTube - a site that enables you to add captions to YouTube videos. Nice idea, but relatively poor execution - the captions frequently overlap, making the text unreadable.

Mobile video apps

Youtube mobile - a stripped down version of YouTube tailored for use on mobile phones.
Shozu - a free service for your phone that makes it easy to send and receive photos, videos and music
Abazab - a universal video player that also works on your mobile phone.
Srobbin Mobile Video - An unofficial search for Google video on your cell phone.
Yahoo Mobile - Yahoo mobile allows you to search, find, and play videos right on your cell phone.
MobiTV - MobiTV allows you to watch television video from popular networks of all kinds.
MTV Mobile Video - Anything MTV related all for download to watch on your cell phone.
ESPN MVP - If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and have the V Cast service enabled, you can watch sports clips and more.
Moblr - Moblr allows you to view videos uploaded to the site directly on your cell phone.
Mobunga - This site allows you to download videos to your mobile phone, as well as iPod and PSP.

Video search

Blinkx - Perform searches within the most popular video networks, such as CBS, Reuters and CNN. Users can search for content and create TV channels that splice relevant content together.
PureVideo - Search within the most popular video directories and video sharing sites. PureVideo features up to six channels and each channel contains about six source sites.
SearchVideo - Search engine and directory created by AOL. Users can also search within specific video channels like MySpace and YouTube.
Search For Video - search engine and video directory that displays results from hundreds of video channels. Search For Video also provides an add-on for Firefox.
Yahoo! Video Search - Yahoo! has a video search engine that gathers videos from Yahoo! directory and from many other online sources. You can also search within specific domains or sites.
TubeSurf - Video search engine that gathers results from popular video directories, such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace and Google Video. TubeSurf is also available as an add-on for Firefox.
ClipRoller - Search across popular video sites, such as: YouTube, Metacafe and more. As you continue to search for videos, ClipRoller learns your preferences and delivers content you like to watch.
Pixsy - A video search engine that lets users search content across dozens of video sites. Users are allowed to save searches and single videos.
ScoopVid - Search engine that enables you to either search for videos or browse through channels and categories.
Google Video Search - Google’s Video search recently was updated and now searches many video sites other than just YouTube and Google Video.
AOL Video - once known as the great media search engine, the AOL-purchased SingingFish, AOL Video kept some traits of the crowd’s favorite place to look for hard to find videos, but true fans claim that the site is not as good as its predecessor.
Truveo - Search videos or browse by either channel or category.
Altavista Video - good old Altavista isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a video search section.

Online video downloading services

VideoRonk - Search and download your favorite videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm, MySpace, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Revver and more.
VideoDL - Download online videos available on YouTube, Google Video and Break.com stright to your computer.
Vixy - Grab videos from popular sites and convert them into various video formats (including iPod and PSP).
KeepVid - Download videos from many video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Videos, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Revver and other services.
VideoDownloader - Get videos from video sharing sites. VideoDownloader is also available as a Firefox extension, allowing you to seamlessly integrate it within your browser.
YouTubeX - Download videos from YouTube. It doesn’t have a lot of options in terms of video sites among which you could choose, but it is very easy to use.
DownThisVideo - This site lets you download videos from YouTube, GoogleVideo, MetaCafe, Vimeo and other services.
KissYouTube - A service that provides two interesting and effective ways to download videos from YouTube.
YouTubeDownloads - Another site that lets you download videos exclusively from YouTube (other sites are not supported).
Kcoolonline - Download videos on your hard disk from more than 90 sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace, Yahoo and many more.
YouTubia - A YouTube clone that lets you download and save YouTube videos within your IE or Firefox browser.
MediaConverter - A platform that lets you download and convert videos straight from YouTube.

Miscellaneous tools

Hellodeo - Record videos from your webcam and post them on any web page.
Flikzor - Send and receive video comments on your profile, blog and more.
Flixn - Record a video message right in the web browser and share anywhere including MySpace and eBay.
GabMail - Service that enable users to send unlimited numbers of free video email messages.
Bubble Guru - A site for recording webcam video messages and getting them onto your website or sending to others.
CamTwist - Software package (for Mac computers) that lets you add special effects to your video chats.
WebcamMax - Software that lets you add videos, screen, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real webcam and broadcast on all messengers (Windows
only).
StumbleUpon Video - Just press “Stumble!” and a random video is presented to you, you can also ask for random videos with in categories like Humor, or Cats.
CrowdRules - video answers to your questions.
ClipSync - interact with other users while watching the same video as them.
ClipSyndicate - publish broadcast quality news on your web site.
Broadbandsports - a big collection of sports-related videos.

Online TV

For this section please visit our roundup of free online television services.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says :

You no longer have to pimp your own profile to get new friends. Friendster’s offering a way to do it for you with its new Fan Profiles option.

With Friendster Fan Profiles, it’s taken the best tools of MySpace and Facebook and combined it to let you leverage a few new features in order to finally become popular. With your new Fan Profile, you can have an unlimited number of fan “friends” which will all be leveraged to get you new friends. So when someone joins your network of fans, all of their friends are then notified. Email alerts will go out to all of your fan “friends” every time you update your blog, or profile, add new photos or widgets.

There’s also a way to automatically accept fans into your network, and send out bulk invites to everyone in your various email accounts. Friendster has even sweetened the deal by offering some on-site and newsletter promotion and web search optimization. The biggest distinction between your regular profile and a Fan Profile is the fact that your fans and your real friends will be kept separate, so you’ll essentially have a profile for personal purposes, and another for promotional purposes, similar in concept to what CollectiveX has recently done with its site update.

What Freindster has done in actuality is add in all the features you should already get with a social network, and wrapped it up in a pretty box with a “Fan Profiles” label on the side. So far there are several branded Fan Profiles from bands, models, etc. including Mandy Moore, Korn, and even Ask Ninja. And be warned: once you convert your profile into a Fan Profile, it cannot be reverted back to its regular state. You’ll be destined for popularity till the end of all time!

Posted by brian tiong at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Sonja Scharrer *)

Posted by brian tiong at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Adam Metz *)

The mashup mixtape scene is rising from the underground and has certainly caught my attention of late but this is the first time I have seen a web2.0 mixtape.  Have a listen.

 
Adam says...

The tracks:
"It's The D.O.G." - Snoop Doog w/O.G. Daddy V
"Uh-Oh" - Ja Rule
"Big Spender" - Jay-Z/Freeway

And about 3 more, plus the voiceover by renowned futurist Joyce Schwarz and
Getabuz co-founder Steve Ehrlich.

 

Posted by brian tiong at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says:

Unype is a service that has combined Google Earth with Skype, for a socially interactive Google Earth experience. This tool is now available as a Facebook application, bringing a Google map right into your Facebook account.

You can see other Facebook users that are using the service at the same time as you, or open the Google Earth service in a new window and interact with Facebook users in this manner as well. For social interaction, you can use your existing Skype account, and even select an Avatar to roam the Google Earth, similar to Weblin.

So has this mashup managed to create a virtual social network on Google Earth? It’s only a matter of time before real maps are used in virtual worlds, for more accurate replicas of existing geographical locations and easy updates for the changing landscape of the world.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Nick Gonzalez *)

Nick says...
 
People really hate cell phone keypads for data entry.

Anyone who’s called customer service knows voice guided phone applications aren’t new, but they’re a good way to navigate menus and enter text. And applications like Spinvox which incorporated speech recognition to turn verbal voicemails into written text messages, and TellMe, which uses voice recognition to power local search, are useful and popular.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

I have been using this web application for more than a year and recommending it to my phone careless friends, it's evolved a little now.  

Mike says... 

The idea of taking an address book application and turning it into a social network isn’t new - Plaxo just did it two weeks ago.

Now ZYB, a Danish startup, is using the mobile phone contact list as the center of the network, and the company doesn’t have the emotional baggage that still lingers with Plaxo and makes many users hesitant to trust them (I, for one, forgave them long ago).

Zyb first launched in mid 2006 as a service to back up your mobile phone. Through a relatively painless process, users can auto-sync their contacts and calendar to ZYB’s servers. It’s useful in the event of a lost phone, but the web interface is actually much easier to use to enter new contact and calendar information, too. The service, which is free, has about 200,000 active users (mostly in Europe).

ZYB, realizing that people add most or all of their close friends, co-workers and family as mobile phone contacts, has now built a social network to leverage those connections. You can add anyone on your contact list as a friend, which sends a request to them to add you as well. Users have standard profile pages to add photos, comments, etc. And they can also text/sms in status updates which appear on their profile, and friends can choose to subscribe to those status updates via text as well (very Twitter-like).

ZYB is free to users, although the company says they will eventually add premium services like Outlook-sync for an additional fee.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *) 

Jeff Squires says...

Posted by brian tiong at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *)

China’s answer to Second Life, HiPiHi, announced at the State of Play V conference in Singapore Monday its intentions to work towards standardized 3D worlds, with an aim of eventually delivering interoperability between various platforms.

HiPiHi said it would cooperate with “global leaders in the Internet and communication industry to establish a set of relevant hardware and software standards for the development of the 3D platform.” The company would then work with other 3D virtual world providers to finalize these standards with the goal of allowing users to interact and transact between different virtual worlds.

HiPiHi current platform is remarkably similar to Second Life in both looks and features, with users creating the world and being able to own land and objects.

Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life has recently taken some steps towards opening its platform, including open sourcing the code for the Second Life client, however the Second Life world has remained closed to 3rd party servers. Linden Lab has previously said that they have “a vision of a globally interconnected grid with clients and servers published and managed by different groups” (indeed, they called it inevitable) so it will be interesting to see whether they join HiPiHi’s initiative.

(via Metaversed)

Posted by brian tiong at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Tameka Kee *)

Posted by brian tiong at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jeff Squires *)

Billboard reports on the move:

The bet is seen as a risky gambit in an industry littered with failures, as traditional media companies have attempted to break into the $30 billion global games market.

“Media companies are crazy trying to bring video-game development in house,” Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said about developing complicated console games. “They act like anyone can do this. The fact is not everyone can.”

Posted by brian tiong at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: 901am.com *)

Cristina Ledesma says:  

Shockwave, one of MTVN Kids and Family Group’s leading sites for casual gamers, announced an agreement with Nokia to deliver Shockwave’s portfolio of Flash Lite mini games to consumers through the Nokia Content Discoverer client, embedded in millions of Nokia devices available in markets around the globe.

The agreement, which represents the first instance of a branded Flash-based games catalog on Nokia handsets, will offer Nokia consumers across multiple countries in Europe and Asia a quick and fun casual gaming experience on their mobile device. Initially, Shockwave will make available more than 20 games from the Shockwave Minis catalog, including Downhill Train and newly created games such as Happy Hours. Games based on popular MTV Networks properties will launch in the future.

“Nokia is pleased to offer the Shockwave Minis line-up of Flash Lite games to our customers,” said Damien D’Souza, head of branded content, Forum Nokia - EMEA. “Shockwave Minis make it easy for mobile handset owners to jump in and experience a fun, casual game playing experience, at a great value.”

Posted by brian tiong at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Chrysi Philalithes *)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Michael Estrin *)

Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH) is betting that apparel will be a good fit for the emerging social networking space. The company has created a social network around Arrow, one of its oldest and best known brands for men's shirts.

In a $20 million print, TV and internet campaign, Arrow will encourage users to go to weareellisisland.org to share their own stories of how their family immigrated to the U.S.

Arrow, which has been in business for more than 150 years, prides itself on the tagline "Authentic American Style."

Michael Kelly, PVH executive vice president of marketing, told The Wall Street Journal the site would succeed only if it had good content, but pointed out that Arrow is committed to encouraging users to talk about values that matter to them, not the clothes specifically.

In recent months, more than a few big brands have used social networks to boost their image. In June, Coca-Cola launched Sprite Yard, a mobile social networking community. Earlier this year, Proctor and Gamble worked with Yahoo! to create a social networking area for women to talk about pregnancy and weight loss.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

Duncan Riley says... 

After the recent ban on gambling, Second Life residents have had reduced opportunities on where spend their hard earned (or bought) Lindens (the Second Life in-world currency).

The world of share trading, regarded by some to be actually worse than gambling, has started to make its presence felt in Second Life. I went undercover (see picture) to see if good money could be made.

First Impressions

The World Stock Exchange (WSE) sits on its own Second Life island in a shiny multi-story edifice that just says money.

The trading floor on the third floor presents an initial lobby that includes an ATM machine (players must deposit money to trade stocks), rule boards and advertising for a bank that offers 15.75% PA. Walking through the lobby players are presented with a lounge area and customer service desks. There is usually a WSE representative on hand to assist with inquiries.

No In-world Trading

The trading floor itself is a misnomer as players are unable to trade via the Second Life interface. Company listing boards and IPO information all lead through to the WSE website. A video viewing area is surrounded by price quote boards, although the space sorely lacks a traditional style transaction ticker.

The WSE website is simple enough.. The trading room page allows players to buy or sell shares, with Limit Ordering also available. General information is provided about companies, as well as stock price history and recent trades.

Can You Make Money Though?

There is only one way to find out. After perusing the 30 odd listed companies I made a number of investments which I may revisit at TechCrunch in the future to report on how they went.

For my opening portfolio I bought companies that sounded like they had substance. Hope Capital Limited (HCL) sounded hopeful, and as this is the holding company for the WSE you’d expect good results. Hype String (HYP) may not make string, but hype always rises, right? I expect Spontaneous Rich Investments, Inc. (SRI) to perform well. Ginko Perpetual Bonds (GPB) are all that remains of the funds from the collapsed Ginko Bank. After trading as high as L$26, today’s price of around $L0.19 makes them a steal. For good measure I rounded out my portfolio with the two IPO’s scheduled for August 20, Taft Worsley Enterprise (TWE) and Apez Corp (APZ). I have no idea what either do, but given the history of IPO’s in such markets, I’m confident of a strong performance. More in a week or so, unless of course I’ve made so much money that I’ve retired.

For a quick tour of the WSE trading floor, view below.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: John Gartner *)

You can take it with you -- if the "it" is user generated content on mobile phones. According to Jupiter Research, revenues from UGC on social networking sites will grow 10 fold between 2007 to 2012 to $5.7 billion.

That's incredible growth for the MySpace's and Facebook's of the world, especially considering the content is free. MySpace is the current leader in the space, with 3.7 million users checking in with friends via phone in a month.

So what will be the biggest marketing opportunities to reach the well-connected youth? Music and video are the most likely mediums, but don't underestimate location-based shopping. Two friends are IMing online and can't decide on where to dine or grab a drink -- hello geolocated advertising.

I believe Jupiter's numbers are a bit high, but there's not doubt that the socially inclined will be served with peer-to-peer distractions to prevent them from ever logging off. This will make for great conversation as people out and about will spend more time texting and less time talking to the real people right in front of them.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: David Feldt *)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *)

Another great article by Dan Taylor, this time on DIY streaming services.

Dan says...

The lowly webcam has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, aided by increased broadband penetration, improved streaming codecs, more kit being bundled with webcam functionality (e.g. mobile phones, laptops) and a mushrooming start-up economy, hungry for the next big web thing.

Stickam
http://www.stickam.com
Launched: February 2006



First out of the blocks (and actually predating Justin.tv by over a year) was Stickam, which bills itself as 'The Live Community' and offers a suite of tools including live video streaming via an embeddable player. Stickam recently hit the headlines over allegations that its parent company, Advanced Video Communications, also runs a substantial online porn operation, which hasn't been viewed by everyone as a particularly good fit with Stickam's predominantly teen user base. The teen user base also helps explain the site's scrappy, MySpace aesthetic and general incomprehensibility to an old geezer like me. Definitely one for the kids.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Ustream.tv
http://ustream.tv
Launched: March 2007



Ustream.tv was the first of the new generation lifecast sites to appear post-Justin.tv, reportedly bringing its launch date forward to capitalise on the surrounding publicity. The interface is pretty slick with a decent chat client and some nice extras such as a 'shout meter' and live polls, set by the broadcaster. It's also possible to pause the stream, which is cached until you resume playing.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

kyte
http://www.kyte.tv
Launched: April 2007



Like Stickam, kyte is something of a hybrid service of which live video streaming is just a part. Also in the mix are photos, music and polls which can all be packaged up within your embeddable 'channel.' However, kyte's key market differentiator is its mobile component which, assuming you've got a compatible handset and a sufficiently meaty data allowance, enables you to broadcast direct from your handset.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Operator11
http://operator11.com
Launched: April 2007



Operator11's USP is letting more than one person into 'the studio' allowing the operator/director/net jockey controlling the video stream to cut back and forth between various contributor feeds. It's an interesting development of the single camera model which potentially moves the medium nearer to broadcast TV, although it also serves as a reminder that successfully editing video on the fly is a great deal harder than it looks.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

blogTV
http://www.blogtv.com
Launched: May 2007



blogTV isn't short on functionality but suffers from a somewhat cluttered interface when viewed alongside the cleaner designs of Ustream and Mogulus. It's 7,500 channels are grouped into nine categories with 'My Life' predictably being the most populated. One nice feature for producers is the ability to pick a co-host whose video stream appears alongside your own with viewers able to interchange the two using a slider.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Mogulus
http://www.mogulus.com
Launched: June 2007



Currently in closed beta, Mogulus focuses more on the production side of live video, offering a fully featured browser-based 'studio' (requires Flash 9) to finesse your broadcast. In contrast, the viewing experience is pretty basic, eschewing chat, comments, ratings and the like in favour of a more classically televisual interface (on/off, mute, volume and, er, that's it). It even goes so far as to mimic static as the channel 'tunes in'. It's certainly the least cluttered of the sites discussed here and should provide a good platform for them to gradually introduce more functionality. I've got five beta invites to giveaway - mail me if you want one.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Veodia
http://www.veodia.com
Launched: April 2007



Veodia is a distributed live streaming product for embedding in blogs and corporate sites and doesn't aggregate any content on its site beyond a couple of sample videos. Unlike most of the alternatives (which use Flash) it streams using MPEG-4/H.264. As a consequence the embedded video lacks any social media features such as comments or chat.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

YouCams
http://www.youcams.com
Launched: Unknown



Like Veodia, YouCams' focus is on distributed live video (via an embeddable widget) rather than aggregation, although it positions itself as a facilitator of social networking chat rather than as a provider of streaming technology.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

mystreams.tv
http://mystreams.tv
Launched: Unknown



The ugly sister of the live video streaming family, mystreams.tv is a UX disaster, plastered in large banner ads and forever opening new windows. Avoid.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: N
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Whilst it's ultimately a matter of horses for courses when it comes to choosing a live video streaming service, my personal vote would be with Ustream.tv with Mogulus the one to watch.
 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

Rand Fishkin explains how to Wiki Jack...

Posted by brian tiong at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Rey Peralta *)

Posted by brian tiong at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Dan says... 

Kooky interface of the week award goes to radio discovery site TUN3R which presents visitors with a giant radio 'dial' populated with thumbnail images of assorted online radio stations. Drag the 'needle' over a thumbnail and you hear a recent sample of the station's output. Beneath the dial you get details of the streaming format and location, a screengrab of the station's homepage and a sample of the recent playlist (if available).

Randomly clicking around the mosaic proves entertaining for a minute or two, although it's the search functionality which is more likely to generate a genuine musical match; typing in the name of an artist highlights every station on the dial which has recently played one of their tracks. Nice. You can also filter by genre or language or search the contents of the station's homepage. Most of the featured stations are promoted for free, although there also an option to buy space in a million dollar homepage stylee.

More here

Posted by brian tiong at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side *)

Thanks David for the invite to your digital conference.  Here is a copy of my presentation for your reference. 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

I suspect that this is only the start of the iPhone revolution.

Michael Arrington says... 

Customizable home page site Netvibes released a pre-beta version of their site for the iPhone earlier today at m.nv1.netvibes.com. This version of the site doesn’t look like much on a normal browser, but it definitely does the job on the iPhone.

The already minimalized Netvibes is pared down even further for the iPhone to a single column of widgets. There are few graphics to speed load time.

I use Netvibes as a quick hit RSS reader for my most important feeds. It does an even better job on the iPhone and I plan to bookmark a special Netvibes page with the 15 feeds I read multiple times per day.

Keep a lookout on the Facebook blog this evening, too. Facebook PR says they will be announcing the iPhone version of the site shortly. Update: It’s launched.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

Michael Arrington says...

A pairing of the two most hyped tech products of the year: Facebook released what is arguably the single best iPhone-customized website to date at iphone.facebook.com. Like the Netvibes iPhone site which launched late yesterday, it isn’t much to look at in a normal browser. But open that thing up in an iPhone and you’ve got a very usable site.

The site uses javascript to avoid page refreshes, although there is still some lag in moving around the site (this is an iPhone issue). The main navigation tabs - Home, Profile, Friends and Inbox - are at the top of the site. Click on any person and see their profile, wall or photos via a horizontally scrolling interface.

Overall I’d give this a top rating except for the occasional javascript error that crashed it out. Given that this hasn’t officially launched yet, I’d actually expect more bugs than I was able to find.

I have not seen a better iPhone website than this one. If you have, let me know. A lot of startups are going to look to this as the gold standard. At least for now.

Look for an announcement on the Facebook blog sometime this morning.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: TechCrunch *)

Mark Hendrickson says...

 
A few weeks ago we posted 9 Ways to Build Your Own Social Network, a review of several hosted, do-it-yourself white label social networking solutions. Conspicuously missing from that round-up were many additional companies that specialize in the creation of social networks. These companies were intentionally overlooked in the first post because we wanted to focus on self-service websites. In this second post, we cover these remaining companies, all of which offer either made-to-order solutions or downloadable software.

When reviewing Ning, KickApps, et al., I was able to test the products first-hand by creating social networks from scratch and for free using online wizards and tools. Testing this second post’s solutions was more difficult because they all require the formation of business relationships and/or local installation and configuration. But we were able to test many of the launched social networks that actually use these solutions, and we also interviewed several of the companies.

Detailed information about the companies is presented in the interactive chart to the right, which features additional information in popups and the ability to select only particular companies for comparison.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashables *) 

Preezo launched last week, bringing another new player to the online presentations scene. Meanwhile, Google Presentations is set to launch by the end of August - possibly as early as this week. With so many services in this market, we’ve rounded up more than 30 tools to create, host and share online presentations. Adiós, Powerpoint!

Ajax13.com - AjaxPresents is an online presentation editor that enables you to edit Microsoft PowerPoint files (.ppt) as well as Open source presentation files (.odp). It requires Ajax13 and does not require installation of any software on computer.

authorSTREAM.com - Users can present and share their PowerPoint presentations with others.

BrinkPad.com - BrinkPad enables users to create presentations with text and images. Be it slideshows, presentations or even drawing, you can do anything with this tool.

Demofuse.com - Users can create interactive website tours in minutes with Demofuse. The tour includes cursor movements and other activities related with a website visit.

Dimdim - Display your presentations to anyone remotely with Dimdim, a challenger to Webex.

Formatpixel.com - Create online applications like magazines, brochures and portfolios and customize them by adding text, images etc.

FlyInside.com - Instantly create, preview, edit, and publish your tours to the web from anywhere there’s a web connection.

Empressr.com - Share your interactive media presentations with your client and access them remotely from any computer.

Honeypitch.com – Combine your business proposal and presentation by inviting selected users to your website. Negotiate your contracts with them online.

mPOWER - Import an existing presentation or create a new presentation from scratch. Share your presentation with users worldwide or publish it to the web.

Preezo.com - Use the fast Ajax user interface to create professional presentations online.

PresentationEngine.com - Create professional looking multimedia presentations by combining your text and media.

PreZentit.com - Display your online presentations to other users.

ProfCast.com - Record PowerPoint presentations, mix them with audio and publish them as a podcasts online.

PPTExchange.com - A marketplace for PowerPoint presentations enabling user to store and share presentations.

Scribd.com - Online library where users can publish their documents and search for other documents using a Flash viewer.

Scooch - Create amazing slideshows of your images.

SlideAware.com - SlideAware is a presentation management platform designed to help you & your team manage the entire life cycle of PowerPoint presentations.

SlideBurner.com - Upload your presentations, share them with others and browse presentations.

Slidelive.com - Share your PowerPoint presentations instantly.

SlideShare - Upload your presentations, find other presentations and embed them in your blog or website.

SlideRocket.com - Web-based application to create presentations, manage presentation directories and share them with other users online.

Spresent.com - Web-based presentation alternative to PowerPoint. Publish, edit and share Flash-based presentations online.

Teamslide - Create and give online presentations for a global audience through your browser.

ThinkFree - A web-based office suite that enables users to create, edit and share their PowerPoint presentations online.

Thumbstacks.com - Make your presentations from a browser, then share them with other users by simply sending them a link to your presentation.

TonicPoint Builder - Read, edit and create PowerPoint presentations right from your browser. Does not require any plugins.

Viewbook.com - Aimed towards professional users like photographers, designers and artists. Registered users can create intuitive online presentations, photo albums and portfolios.

Toufee - Very easy way to create and publish online flash presentations and movies.

Zentation.com - Synchronize videos and PowerPoint files to create professional presentations.

Zoho Show - Create your presentations from your browser, share them over the web and export them offline. Part of the Zoho office suite.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashables *) 

From sending one document to backing up an entire business, data storage is the key to everything nowadays. Due to popular demand, we’ve put together a list of more than 80 of the leading file hosting services, many of which are completely free.

Online Backup

Allmydata.com - Unlimited storage and automated backup for $4.99 a month.

Angelbackup.com - Prices as low as $1.95 for 2GB of automated backup.

BlogBackupOnline.com - Automatically backs up your blog for you with up to 50MB of storage.

Carbonite.com - Backup your entire hard drive automatically, no free version.

CrashPlan.com - Automated backup plans as low as a one-time $20 fee, unlimited space.

Datapreserve.com - Automated, managed off-site remote backups, focusing on businesses.

Egnyte.com - Backup your files, store them securely, export them back to your computer in a crash. Share with co-workers for collaborative work.

ElephantDrive.com - 1GB of free storage, automated backups; up to 1TB in subscription form.

File123.com - 1GB of space for free, up to 10GB of backup for as low as $4.95 a month.

gDisk - Turn your Gmail account in to an online storage space for free.

GoDaddy.com - All paid plans, as low as $5.99 a year for 50MB, sync between multiple computers.

IBackup - Anywhere from 5GB to 300GB of storage, no free services.

iOmega iStorage - Automated backups for personal or business users, file sharing available.

Ironmountain.com - Focusing on professional backup solutions from small business up to government agencies.

MediaMaster.com - Unlimited storage of your music collection.

Mozy.com - Automated online backup of your selected files with versioning.

Mp3Tunes.com - Unlimited free storage of your music collection, streaming play of the songs from anywhere.

MyOtherDrive.com - Store up to 5GB of files, use as backup or share.

Omnidrive.com - Backup anywhere from 1GB for free, use as backup you can access from anywhere, or use as a file host to use on other sites.

Orbitfiles.com - 6GB of storage for your files, automated backup, ability to share with family and friends.

SOSOnlineBackup.com - Automated backup of your essential files.

Steekr.com - Online backup of digital media, free up to 1GB, subscriptions for more. Stream your stored music for listening anywhere, share files with friends.

Strongspace.com - Minimum of a 5GB subscription package, files are shareable with other registered users.

Textive.com - Backup your documents for free. Choose to publish some or all of your files, get paid for them.

Titanize.com - Online backup that allows you to snyc with other devices and share links to your files.

Trueshare.com - Secure off-site data backup, packages as small as 3GB up to 1TB.

Yuntaa.com - Sync your hard drive with your online storage, restore, or share. Free up to 1GB.

Sending Services

Arunalabs.com - Send large files to anyone on the net.

Bigfilez.com - Send a file up to 500MB in size to multiple recipients.

Bigupload.com - Send files up to 500MB in size, up to 2GB for premium members.

BoxCloud.com - Up to 1GB of free sending, more space with paid plans.

Driveway.com - Send an unlimited number of files up to 500MB each in size.

DropSend.com - Email files up to 250MB in size, subscriptions get you larger files and more storage.

FileFactory.com - Send up to 25 files at a time at 300MB per file.

JustUpIt.com - Send a file up to 120MB to up to four email addresses.

Jagbox.com - Upload a file up to 100MB in size, share the link, set an expiration time.

LeapFILE.com - Send files of various sizes, 7 day trial, subscription thereafter.

Localhostr.com - Upload a file up to 50MB in size, share it with friends.

MailBigFile.com - Send up to a 100MB file to one recipient, up to 2GB to 5 recipients if you subscribe.

MoveDigital.com - Store and deliver large files easily with a drag-and-drop interface.

Pandafile.com - Send a file, no limitations mentioned.

Send6.com - Send up to six large files at once for free, private branding available.

Sendspace.com - Send files up to 300MB in size, unlimited downloads.

SendThisFile.com - Subscription only, size and bandwidth vary with plan.

Sharebee.com - Upload a file, share the link, no mention of limitations on size.

YouSendIt.com - Email files up to 100MB in size for free, bigger limits by subscription.

YouSwap.com - Upload and send up to 1GB of files to multiple email addresses.

Storage/Sharing Services

4shared.com - Share a file or an entire folder for free, up to 1GB. More space available for annual subscription plans.Badongo.com - Unlimited file storage, inactive files files deleted after 45 days for free members, never for premium members.

BigFilebox.com - Free storage up to 100MB, more space available for a fee.

BooMP3.com - Free unlimited storage of audio files.

Box.net - Up to 1GB of storage of files up to 10MB size each, more space for monthly or annual fee.

BOXSTr.com - 10GB of storage of files up to 250MB in size each, 10GB of bandwidth.

DivShare - Upload a file, store it forever, embed it anywhere you want. Premium service allows you to brand your embeds.

Ewedrive.com - Store up to 1GB for free, more available at a fee.

Exaroom.com - Upload files, make a profile, let friends browse and download your files, access your files from anywhere.

FileDEN.com - 1GB of storage, files up to 50MB each, hotlinking allowed of all file extensions.

FileHo.com - Unlimited storage, you can choose to share your files or keep them private.

FileNanny.com - Store up to 500MB of files and share them with anyone.

FilePanda.com - Upload files up to 200MB in size, share them with others.

Flypicture.com - Unlimited hosting of pictures, audio or movie files, free use for blogs and auctions.

Freefilehosting.net - Free hosting of files up to 3MB in size, use anywhere.

GigaSize.com - Store up to 1.5GB, share files for up to 90 days.

I2drive.com - Plans as low as $4.99 for 500MB of storage.

In.solit.us - Upload your files, keep them private or opt to make them public so anyone can download them.

Jumbodir.com - Upload without even registering, up to 2GB of space and no time limits if you do register.

Mediafire.com - Upload up to 10 files of up to 100MB each at a time, unlimited storage, link and share if you like.

MediaMax.com - Up to 25GB of free storage, 10MB per file, more space and size limits available by subscription.

Megaupload.com - Up to 50GB of free storage and sharing capabilities for free.

Mofile.com - Up to 1GB of sharing storage.

MyDataBus.com - Upload up to 5GB of files for free and share, can integrate with Facebook.

MyFabrik.com - 1GB of media storage you can share and embed.

OneDump.com - Free hosting and sharing of up to 10 files of 5MB each.

QuickSharing.com - Up to 500MB per file, deleted after 30 days of inactivity.

RapidSahre.com - Share an unlimited number of files up to 100MB in size, an unlimited number of times.

Supload.com - Unlimited image hosting for use with sites such as eBay and MySpace.

TagAndFile.com - Store up to 100MB for free, more space available for a fee.

Tilefile.com - Upload and organize your files, share them with friends.

Upfordown.com - 20GB of storage with 50GB of bandwidth the first month for free.

Webcargo.net - Mail files up to 100MB for free, stay online for up to 7 days. More paid options.

WOOfiles.com - Up to 1GB of storage, share with friends.

Xdrive.com - Up to 5GB of storage, access from anywhere, share with friends and family.

zUpload.com - Share files up to 500MB in size, unlimited downloads.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashables *) 

Summer is winding down and it’s time to head back to school. This list comprises everything from financial aid to local guides, social networking, web-based applications and much more for the student with no time to waste in getting the most out of their education.

Application Sites

BeRecruited.com - For student athletes to fill out a form and be connected with college recruiters while getting information on scholarships.

Cappex.com - Create a profile and let universities approach you, talk only to the schools that interest you.

USphere.com - Fill out an online application showing your grades, test scores, college preferences, and more. Then it goes out to all of USphere’s partner schools and you hear back from the interested ones.

Zinch.com - Show potential schools you are more than ACT/SAT score by writing about yourself and creating a portfolio to sell yourself.

Buy/Sell/Trade Sites

ACollegeTrade.com - Buy or sell text books, CDs, DVDs, and more in an auction setting that charges no fees. Search locally or nationally.

BooksForSchool.ca - A Canadian-based site for buying & selling your textbooks.

CollegeMedium.com - A classified ads site targeted specifically to students. Buy or sell your items, look for apartments and jobs directed specifically towards your school.

Craigslist.org - While everyone knows Craigslist is a place for classifieds of all kinds, it’s also a great place for buying and selling textbooks.

DormItem.com - Search classifieds by school so you get results for your area.

ECampus.com - Lets you buy & sell textbooks, they pick up UPS shipping costs.

EFCollegeBreak.com - A travel site with packages directed specifically towards college students wanting to see the world.

Half.com - A popular site for buying and selling your textbooks at bargain prices.

Ichapters.com - Buy print textbooks, ebooks, or even just one chapter of a text.

Pazap.com - An exchange site for students to trade, buy and sell books on-campus with other students.

Studentbid.com - Buy and sell your items without any fees, search for rentals and sublets in your area.

Uloop.com - Buy & sell your textbooks, find a ride home, promote events and more.

Financial Information & Aid Sites

Fafsa.ed.gov - The FAFSA website is the US Federal government website that assists you in applying for financial aid by filling out their forms.

Finaid.org - Assists you in finding different forms of financial aid for attending school.

Finfo.com - Offers all sorts of financial info from comparing schools tuitions and potential jobs vs. their related cost of living.

TuitionCoach.com - Helps you calculate your college tuition and then aids you in finding ways to pay it.

Homework Reference & Work Sites

Bartelby.com - Contains full texts of public domain works, perfect for that paper on Shakespeare and other passed on authors.

BookALesson.com - Aims to streamline the communication process between student and their teachers.

BuddySchool.com - Find online tutoring in pretty much any subject you need.

Carmun.com - Ever wish you could find someone at your school to discuss a fairly unknown text for a class? Search Carmun for other students around the world who share your passions.

Digication.com - Allows you to create an eportfolio and easily share documents with students and teachers.

Ectolearning.com - Lets you set up peer-to-peer learning as close as across the hall or anywhere in the world.

Gradefix.com - A homework management system that aids you in staying organized and getting your work done more efficiently.

Literature.org - Full and unabridged texts of classic English Literature.

NoodleTools.com - Assists you in writing a bibliography and making note cards to go along with it.

Pebblelearning.co.uk - A site to to put your work in to an eportfolio to allow peer groups to work, teachers to give feedback, record progress and more.

Scriptovia.com - A collaborative site for students to receive feedback on their academic work.

TalkBean.com - A global network of tutors waiting to work with students.

TutorLinker.com - Lets you search your local area for tutors in the fields you need.

Tutorz.com - Helps you locate a tutor in virtually any subject or level.

Informational

Alumwire.com - Helps college students and young alumni with building a career network.

AnswerU.com - Ask about any question you can imagine about your school and receive answers from your fellow students.

CampusExplorer.com - Explore information on over 6,000 colleges in the USA to find the one just right for you.

CollegeWikis.com - Browse wiki sites specific to your university or learn some things about schools you may want to attend.

LocalSchools.com - Enter the program you are interested in, where you live, and a radius of how many miles to search, and this site will help you locate a school meeting your needs.

RateMyProfessors.com - For the college and grad school set, check out your professors before you sign up for their classes. Add your own thoughts.

RateMyTeachers.com - For K - 12 classes, check out what your teachers are like before the first day and add your own reviews.

Yelp.com - Moving away to school can be scary as you don’t know all the good places to go. This site attempts to help with visitor-written reviews and tips.

Miscellaneous

FreeMyCampus.com - A site for college students to write on any number of subjects, believing that every student should have a voice.

Gradspot.com - A catch-all site with tips on good job interviews, finding your first apartment, to even health tips. A great source of information for someone living out on their own for the first time.

MonsterTRAK.com - A division of Monster.com geared specifically to part-time jobs, entry-level positions, internships and more.

Scholar.com - A social bookmarking site specifically geared towards academia.

Organizational Sites

CollegeMailer.com - Helps school clubs and organizations manage themselves and set up schedules, communicate, pay for event tickets and more.

CollegeRuled.com - Class message boards, easy to create class schedules, to-do lists for each class, and more.

MynoteIT.com - Track to-do lists, upload your documents, put your notes online and access them even from your mobile phone.

Notely.net - Helps you organize your lessons, to-do lists, notes and more.

NoteMesh.com - Allows students in the same class to create a wiki and share their notes so they can work together.

Stu.dicio.us - Organize your documents, take notes, share them, automatically link keywords in notes to Wikipedia.

Tuggle.it - An online tool for running your student organizations.

Social Networks

B4Class.com - Social networking with video chats, notes on trends and fashion and much more.

Campusbug.com - Combines social networking with online questions & answers and more.

CampusCentral.com - Connecting students from anywhere to buy and sell their textbooks, as well as building a community that lets you communicate.

CrushTV.com - Just for college students to create a profile, upload & share videos and pictures, and send mail.

Facebook.com - Although no longer just for school students, this site is still a very big part of university life.

SocialMD.com - A social network for medical students, residents, fellows, and physicians.

StudentFace.com - A student social networking site for Australia.

StudentSN.com - A student-only social network that offers all of the usual trappings.

Zeeya.net - An international social network for students.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *) 

Kristen Nicole says... 

gBox has been chosen by Universal Music Group as one of the venues through which its DRM-free music will become available during its test phase, running through January, 2008. See our coverage of Universal’s initial announcement here.

The start-up, which had been in stealth mode until Universal made the announcement, will get referrals through Universal’s ads on Google’s network. gBox plans on officially launching on August 21. When a search is performed for an artist’s name or song, Universal’s ad will appear, and then direct to gBox’s website. The deal entails Google receiving standard fees, and not a share of revenue based on sales. It also looks like you’ll be able to get downloads on gBox for a lower price than had been announced for Universal’s DRM-free mp3s. The standard rate of 99 cents will apply on gBox, while it had been said that Universal’s DRM-free songs will be priced at $1.29.

With Universal and Google teaming up to promote sales of its DRM-free content, it looks like the music group could be taking a stand against Apple, with which it did not renew its long-term contract for music sales. On the other side of the coin, while gBox has negotiated deals with other music labels, including Sony, the songs will not play on Mac computers, as its service is only compatible with Internet Explorer for Windows, and support for Firefox is planned for later this month. While Amazon, Wal-Mar, BestBuy, and RealNetworks will also be selling Universal’s content sans DRM protection, only gBox will be benefiting from Universal’s ad referrals.

Looks like, at its heart, gBox will be more of a service for creating wishlists and enabling friends to purchase these items for you (as a gift) directly through a widget that can be placed on your personal website, blog, or social networking profile. The songs available on gBox will be included in this social, commerce widget.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Aardman Animation, the company behind Wallace and Gromit and Creature Comforts, have announced the opening of their virtual kids’ world, WebbliWorld.

The site has teamed up with WWF, not the wrestlers, and Puffin books to offer various enviro-content.

But the site is anything but surly; in fact it’s downright gorgeous. There are several embedded video shorts, featuring a handful of characters composed by the Webbli generator.

The generator is available to users, and is pretty straightforward, and you can make some ‘interesting’ characters without too much hassle.

The site also has its own currency, Webbles, which can be earnt via recommending friends, rating other Webblis, and suggesting extensions for the site.

Currently, they’re offering mysterious prizes to the first few Webble millionaires, so you’d best start saving.
There are also tips and pointers on staying safe online, in addition to games and videos with a WWF twist.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

Michael Arrington says...

Apple isn’t just sitting on the sidelines as startups like iLike and MOG and others try to tackle the social music space. Many of these services gather user music preferences via an iTunes plugin. You are then able to tell the world what music you are listening to, get recommendations for new music you might like, etc. People love this stuff, as evidenced by iLike’s ridiculous growth and Last.fm’s $280 million acquisition by CBS.

Apple has launched My ITunes, a set of widgets that may be a first step in taking their fair share of the social music market. Niall Kennedy caught sight of it a couple of days ago.

iTunes is giving you an effortless way to keep your friends up-to-date with your favorite music, TV shows, movies, and more. My iTunes widgets are simple, self-updating add-ons for your web page, social-networking profile, or blog.

Use My iTunes to share your top reviews, favorite artists, and new music, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes Store with anyone who visits your site.

There are currently three embeddable widgets to choose from. One shows recent iTunes purchases. Another shows music you’ve reviewed on iTunes. The last shows a sort of tag cloud of artists you’ve purchased on the iTunes store. The widgets can be customized by size and color.

The first and last widgets only work if you’ve actually bought stuff on iTunes. I’ve bought enough things to create a thinly populated widget below. But what would be far more interesting is a widget that, like iLike, shows your favorite music and plays at least a 30 second snippet of each song.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Debra Aho Williamson *) 

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(* Source: Jeff MacIntyre *)

Web2.0 is here to stay and we need a new browser that understands this new user environment. 

Jeff says... 

Flock advertises itself as a "social browser," meaning that the application plays nicely with popular web services like Flickr, Technorati and del.icio.us. Flock also features widely compliant WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop blogging tools. The browser even promises to detect and authenticate all those user accounts automatically. It's a clear attempt to be the browser of choice for the Web 2.0 user.

 

More here 

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(* Source: Kerry Miller *)

New startup Mozes is trying a new model to captivate advertisers and consumers—offering its platform for free. Will its gambit work?

When the Plain White T's ran a backstage pass giveaway with Mozes during their tour last fall, around 50% of audience members participated each night, the company says.

 

• View Slide Show

Among marketers, mobile has been hailed as the next big thing for years now, but in the U.S., actual adoption has lagged behind the hype (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/23/07, "The Sell-Phone Revolution"). With the exception of a few big brands, most advertisers have taken a wait-and-see approach when it comes to mobile marketing campaigns. Now Mozes, a 14-person startup from Palo Alto, Calif., with $5 million in venture funding, is hoping to give both advertisers and consumers an incentive to experiment, by offering up its text-messaging platform for free.

While its service is available to anyone from individuals to school groups to small businesses, Mozes is targeting the music industry, promoting its Web-based platform as a free tool that bands can use to connect with fans on their mobile phones, notifying them when concert tickets go on sale, for example, or running text-to-win contests. When the Plain White T's—a band that topped Billboard's Top 100 singles chart in July—ran a backstage pass giveaway with Mozes during their tour last fall, around 50% of audience members participated each night, the company says.

1,000 bands with 20,000 fans

Unlike many of the other Web startups targeting the music industry (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/26/07, "Close Harmony: Bands and Web 2.0"), "Mozes does not want to be a community," Porter says. Instead, he wants to create "a branded network." Porter says that addresses one of the thorniest issues for both consumers and marketers—privacy—because fans can register their information on Mozes just once for multiple bands, knowing they can easily opt out at any time.

If the concept catches on, texting the name of a band to the Mozes short code (66937, or M-O-Z-E-S) will be as familiar to music fans as typing it in a MySpace URL. Once the audience is there, Mozes, like MySpace (NWS), can charge advertisers for the same tools it gives away to bands for free, while also making money from the sale of premium content like music downloads and from on-site advertising.

The company has already done small mobile campaigns with a few advertisers, including Microsoft (MSFT), Mozilla's Firefox browser, and Dippin' Dots ice cream. And since the Mozes beta launch in April, 2006, Chief Executive Dorrian Porter says he has signed up more than 1,000 bands, which have amassed mobile lists of as many as 20,000 fans.

So far, the artists with the biggest mobile fan lists, or "mobs," on Mozes are mainstream stars like Fall Out Boy and R. Kelly, but big-name indie acts like the Postal Service have established Mozes accounts, too—a result of Mozes' strategy of reaching out to individual band managers and smaller indie labels at the same time it went after partnerships with majors like Disney's (DIS) Hollywood Records and Universal/Motown (VIVEF.PK).

"Personal touch"

"For us, it's really a no-brainer. It's just another way to reach people without spending any money to do it," says Jordan Kurland of Zeitgeist Artist Management, who established Mozes accounts for several of the bands he manages, including the Postal Service. The cost consideration is an especially strong draw for indie bands that wouldn't be able to launch mobile marketing campaigns on their own.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

From CommonCraft comes this great video that explains social bookmarking in simple terms. Very original.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

SpiralFrog, the ad-supported free music download site, may finally be back on track to launch. The company says that it will be ready to go live later on this year, and has sent out invitation emails to a select group of private beta testers.

After a pretty severe executive shakeup, and too much media coverage to save face with its delayed launch late last year, many speculated that SpiralFrog would never happen. With the ad-supported model, which shows ads while you wait for your music to download, many speculate that SpiralFrog won’t be successful either.

So far it’s signed Universal Music Group for the majority of its offering of 770,000 songs in its music library, which could be somewhat limiting, if SpiralFrog’s hope is to encourage music discovery and anti-piracy. Additional limiting factors include the fact that songs are Windows compatible only, meaning you can play songs on your computer or Windows Media-compatible player, but not your iPod. We’re all hoping that SpiralFrog can pull through and prosper, partnering with additional music labels along the way.

Google is also looking to provide a free, ad-supported mobile phone for consumers.

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(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

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 (* Source : Bayarsaykan Volodya *)

Instant messaging is said to be one of the most popular forms of Internet communication for teens today, beating out email thanks to the lack of spam and instant feedback. With SweetIM adding support for AIM today, we thought we’d take a look at how the IM market is shaping up.

And for those who think 90+ IM clients are too many for anyone to handle, we wholly agree: that’s why a good number of these are actually tools to aggregate all your IM buddies in one place.

Popular IM Clients

Google Talk - use GTalk for your voice calls, voice messages, file transfer and Gmail notifications

Skype - high quality calls to anyone, anywhere in the world

Yahoo! Messenger - an official messenger for Yahoo! users, free to use but advertising-supported

AOL Instant Messenger - communicate with AOL registered users via text, voice, and video

Windows Live Messenger - connect and share instantly on the world’s most popular IM network

ICQ - the world’s first instant messaging program

mICQ - a free text-based ICQ client that runs on a wide variety of platforms

Licq - a free clone of the ICQ client for Linux other Unix systems

aMSN - a free and open source MSN Messenger clone for Linux users

JMSN - a pure Java MSN Messenger clone, with many interesting features that MSN doesn’t have

CSpace - secure and peer-to-peer communication to chat or transfer files

Coccinella - a free Jabber/XMPP client with a built-in white board for improved collaboration with other people

Emesene - a MSN Messenger client with a simpler GUI and a nice look

Gajim - a full-featured and easy to use XMPP client for gnome users

GOIM - allows users to chat within DirectX games

mcabber - a small console-based Jabber client that runs on Linux and Mac OS X

Gadu-Gadu - the most popular IM in Poland

Exodus - a Jabber client which is small, fast, easy to use, and looks good

Retroshare - communicate and download files from friends of friends

naim - a console based multi-protocol client with features like peer to peer encryption and module support

Gossip - an instant messaging client for Gnome users, with chat history search

MessageMate - commercial IM platform that provides end-to-end security; interoperable with AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN

Papla Instant - use it on your PC and mobile phone

Mercury Messenger - a full featured Windows Live Messenger client, offers several extra features which are not implemented in MSN

Psi - small, fast Jabber client

Spark - free and open source IM with built-in support for group chat, telephony integration and strong security

Jabbin - free Jabber client that enables free calls using VoIP

YSM - full-featured console-based ICQ client

MySpaceIM - the official instant messaging client for MySpace

OneTeam - IM client is XUL based, so requires Firefox 2

Microsoft Messenger for Mac - the official Mac client for MSN Messenger, but the feature list is limited

Xfire - chat with contacts inside the game, without the need to minimize the game windows

Pandion - Jabber client which supports plugins to extend its features

BitWise IM - a secure, cross-platform client that encrypts all data sent between users

Multi-network IM Clients

Pidgin - most popular, free, multi-platform IM client that supports most of the IM protocols

Miranda IM - lightweight, resource efficient and easy to use client with powerful plugin support

Ayttm - in case of a service failure, this will automatically fall back to other service protocols of the same person you are chatting to.

Trillian - a Windows application that can connect to multiple IM services, with nice features like Metacontact, Instant lookup, and Emotiblips

meetro - find and chat with people nearby, i.e. location-aware client

IMVU - 3D chat which enables you chat in 3D scenes with your own avatars

Kopete - KDE application, provides users with a single, easy-to-use way to access all of their instant messaging systems

MECA - connect to all of your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and ICQ from just one list

Centericq - text based multi protocols IM client

Proteus - popular client for Mac OS X that supports multiple protocols

Instan-t - Windows client that allows users to communicate with MSN, AIM, Y!Messenger, ICQ and its IM networks

iChat - IM Client from Apple for Mac OSX

Universal Messenger Plus - a single convenient interface that allows you to easily communicate over different protocols.

Qnext - share your music, photos, and files with anyone, instantly while talking via IM

Aduim - free client for Mac users that can connect to most of the popular messaging services

BitlBee - IRC clients with support of IM protocols

Web based IM

meebo - the most popular third party web based instant messaging service

eBuddy - chat with your buddies using web and mobile versions

KoolIM - web-based IM that allows you to connect to your email inbox as well as popular IM networks

ILoveIM - another web based IM service with advertisements

IMhaha - supports Yahoo, MSN and AIM but not Google Talk

Goowy - more than just an IM client; offers e-mail, calendar, news, RSS, file storage and more

IMunitive - an alternative to meebo, but doesn’t support Jabber i.e. Google Talk

RadiusIM - web-based IM service with Google Maps integration, which means you can see where your friends are

MessengerFX - unofficial web based IM client for MSN Messenger

ICQ2Go! - web-based installation-free version of ICQ

SNIMMER - chat on MSN, Yahoo, AOL, ICQ and GTalk and make new friends by creating a profile with pictures

IMO - allows you to log in to all chat networks at the same time

Communicationtube - separate login for ICQ, MSN Messenger, IRC and Google Talk contacts

Express Instan-t - simple IM which works with ICQ, MSN and Yahoo

easymessenger - free instant messenger service with built-in RSS support that works with MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! and Jabber.

mabber - use it on your phone or put it on your website

MSN2Go - Java applet that enables you connect to MSN messenger service

Yafumato Web Messenger - free and open source web-based IM client that allows you to connect to AIM, GTalk, MSN, and Yahoo

MSN Web Messenger - the web-based version of MSN Messenger, without file sharing or video calls

Yahoo! Web Messenger - access to your Yahoo! messenger, chat with your friends and get notified when new email is received.

AIM Express - official web-based instant messenger for AIM

Google Talk via Gmail - chat with your GTalk contacts from Google mail

Mobile IM

Agile Messenger - user friendly all-in-one application for your mobile phone

Eqo - save up to 95% on calls, 70% on text messaging, integrates all of MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AIM, ICQ, and Jabber.

fring - use it as an IM client, but also for free calls over Wi-Fi, GPRS or EDGE

IM+ - All-in-One Mobile Messenger that works on any mobile device

OctroTalk - keeps you connected with your buddies, and works seamlessly over GPRS/EDGE/CDMA/Wifi/Bluetooth data connections

QuickIM - connect to public MSN networks using your cell phone with one time license fee

JiveTalk - connect simultaneously to AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber

Causerie - an easily configurable chat tool with simple-to-use user interface that work on Palm, Blackberry, Pocket PC, Symbian and J2ME enabled phones.

TipicME - J2ME-based Jabber client that is really well done and absolutely free

iSkoot - mobile application that allows you to connect by GPRS, 3G or Wifi and to speak or chat with all your contacts on Skype

MovaMessenger - a free mobile IM client, works with MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, and GTalk

Turbo MSN - a mobile MSN client for Nokia and Panasonic

Nimbuzz - call your IM buddies on their mobile or on their PC, chat with your IM buddies for free and send text messages for free.

Heysan - web based mobile messenger, compatible with most of the mobile phones including iPhone.

YehBA Mobile IM - allows you chat with your friends anywhere in the world, meet new friends across the globe through chat rooms, and have access to an unlimited number of fun services.

Palringo Vocal IM - transforms your mobile device into a walkie-talkie: communicate with a contact or a group at the touch of a button

MT Messenger - exchange messages using the most popular IM applications from MSN, Yahoo! and AOL

EpyxMobile - call all over the world from your mobile phone for SkypeOut tariffs

GoTalkMobile - Java application for J2ME enabled phones, allows you connect to Google Talk and Jabber

MSN Mobile - take MSN with you

Mundu - conference with your contacts across IM services in a single chat session

Posted by brian tiong at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Trendhunter.com *)

Surfing the web can be a lot of fun, but it’s even more entertaining when you can share the cool stuff you find with a friend. Problem is, there isn’t always someone with you. Physically, that is. You can check out pages with virtual friends online – every site you visit is a potential social encounter and chance to meet a like-minded person. All you have to do is download the software at Weblin.com and then, with each page you visit that is being viewed by another Weblin user, your customized avatar pops up at the bottom of your screen. Your little buddy will hang out there if you leave him alone, or you can interact with other visitors. “Weblin makes you and others on the Web visible as small avatars. There are others on the same page you are on right now. Weblin opens a new and exciting world on every website.”

More related articles

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(* Source: Trendhunter.com *)

Posted by brian tiong at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Nick Gonzales *)

Anywhere.fm has launched a new online music player that looks and feels a lot like a web based version of the iTunes player, sans the music marketplace. Like iTunes, you can load maintain a music library, reorganize your songs into play lists, and veg out to visualizations. Anywhere.fm’s iTunes bulk uploader makes it easy to get up and running with your existing library.

The company leverages the web to add portability and a social layer to their music player. There is currently no cap on the number of songs you can upload to the player, so you can create a potentially unlimited music library you can listen to anywhere. Streampad is a nearly identical product with less polish.

Like a host of other social music startups, Anywhere.fm has also added music discovery features. While not as robust a discovery engine as a Last.fm and company, users can find new songs by listening to their friends’ play lists and will soon be able to find new friends based on a music compatibility score. However, due to copyright concerns, playlists from other users can only be streamed as radio stations. Playlists must be a couple songs long and played in a random order. Although, Anywhere.fm isn’t following official online radio play guidelines like Lala, which require station play lists to be at least three hours long before publishing.

The company competes in the increasingly crowded online music locker services like Mp3tunes, Maestro, imeem, Streampad, Songbird, and MediaMasters. The service does benefit from being simple, free, and social, but incumbents have a steady head start. Hype Machine, RadioBlogClub, and Blogmusik are also other low hassle ways to listen to music at work.

Anywhere.fm is looking to make money outside of charging users for their service. They are considering the obvious step of affiliate music sales for songs you don’t own, inserting audio ads in radio streams, and selling music directly. Currently the player lists indie music from Garage Band.com, which could turn into a direct point of sale.

Anywhere.fm is a Y Combinator startup.

Update: Good video review is here.

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(* Source: Jason Zada *)

EVB's executive creative director reports from the 2007 Cannes Festival and finds that online media is putting creative big ideas back on top of marketing.

The 2007 Cannes Lions Festival provided an extremely interesting peek into the future of marketing and how the industry itself is reacting. A common thread throughout the festival was the ongoing debate between traditional and new media and the rapidly blurring lines between the two. The advertising industry seems to be in a state of flux, and we are all caught in the middle of a beautiful shift into a media-neutral world.

In particular, Cannes attendees, who came from around the world to share ideas and learn from industry peers, sensed that in 2006 there was a major change in the way they worked and thought about marketing. In cafes, hallways, lounges, poolside terraces and gutters, one word was muttered an incalculable number of times. This single word, one that many traditional agencies in years past avoided like the plague, was on the tip of everyone’s tongues: digital.

Until now, digital has been used widely as a term to describe a single medium used as an entity of a marketing plan. But over the last year, digital has taken on a new definition that is changing the entire marketing structure. It is now being defined as a state of mind; a lifestyle of the non-media captive consumer that we chase day-in and day-out. At Cannes, the RG/A Nike Plus campaign particularly embodied this new digital spirit. It uniquely linked product development with marketing strategy, creating a dedicated consumer running culture around the product. As a result, the Nike Plus campaign was awarded digital’s most prestigious award, the Cyber Grand Prix.

The new digital has transformed the way consumers interact with m’edia, since they are no longer captive. It's changed the way word-of-mouth, "water cooler" conversations happen, driving the popularity of an idea instantly overnight. Most importantly, digital has transformed how the media-savvy consumer experiences and consumes marketing, and these "natural-born filters" are skilled at selecting what they want to interact with and what they prefer avoiding.

More here 

More related articles

Posted by brian tiong at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: 901am.com *)

As a major enhancement to the recently announced beta of the all-new Plaxo, the company today unveiled its next-generation social network, Pulse. Pulse pulls in “people feeds” from a large and rapidly growing list of sites, and enables conversations about the resulting content stream – within your family, around your circle of friends or across your business network. It dubs itself as a “true social network, that brings your address book to life with what the people you actually know and care about are creating, discovering, and saying online.”

Pulse is pioneering the concept of “people feeds,” which is the notion of being subscribed to the people in your address book, and then automatically receiving the content they choose to share with you from any of the various sites they use. The list of sites from which Pulse is aggregating such people feeds now includes: Amazon.com, AOL Pictures, Del.icio.us, Digg, Flickr, Jaiku, Last.fm, LiveJournal, MySpace, Picasa, Pownce, Smugmug, Tumblr, Twitter, Webshots, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, Yahoo! 360, Yelp, and YouTube. Many more are on the way, thanks to user-centric sharing policies and open standards for exchange of data, including RSS, OpenID and microformats.

“Pulse represents the natural evolution of Plaxo,” said Todd Masonis, Founder and VP of Products. “It’s all about keeping you more richly connected to the people you actually know, by transforming your address book into a true social network for your real personal and professional relationships.”

Posted by brian tiong at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: 901am.com *)

AmieStreet.com, a new digital music store with a unique demand-based pricing system, announced the completion of its Series A financing led by Amazon.com, Inc.

AmieStreet.com is the first digital music store propelled by social networking, where members of the community drive the discovery, promotion and pricing of music. All songs on AmieStreet.com start at a price of zero cents. As more people download a song the price rises, capping at $0.98.

For recommending their favorite songs to their friends, members are rewarded by receiving credit for the purchase of additional music on AmieStreet.com. The more popular a song becomes after a member has recommended it, the more credit he or she receives to spend on music.

“AmieStreet.com grew from the idea that we needed to make buying music social and fun. The Amie Street community took over from there, driving a shift toward a music marketplace where consumers decide what is popular and what music is worth. We’re thrilled to have Amazon.com’s support in empowering music consumers,” said AmieStreet.com’s co-founder and CEO Elliott Breece.

The amount of Amazon’s investment and the terms are not disclosed.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kris Graft *)

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(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

Multiverse, the company that lets you “network” your MMOGs, has released the Multiverse Platform, version 1.0. The service was previously available only in beta, in which 11,000 development teams participated from around the world.

This software solution will enable developers to essentially build their own virtual worlds. There are no upfront fees, and the software provides a common set of tools for developers to create their own massive games, lowering the technical barriers as well. This leaves us with a more affordable approach for game creation. Along with this release, Multiverse is launching its “Worlds in Progress” project, which is early prototype games and worlds that have been built on the Multiverse Platform. Players can access these prototype games and worlds, along with all the other games in the company’s network. Multiverse recently received $4 million in funding.

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(* Source : Kristen Nicole *)

Me.dium, the browser add-on tool that’s aiming for more social web browsing, has added its service to be available for Internet Explorer users. Previously only able to be used by Firefox and Flock users, Me.dium can now reach a much broader audience.

That’s not all that Me.dium has going on today. It’s also created a widget for users to display their live web in relation to themselves and their website. The widget is in javascript, and can be placed on your blog, or your personal website. It reflects your circle of Me.dium activity as a sort of “behind-the-scenes” look at what’s going on. See who’s visited your site, and enable you and your site visitors to check out the sites that other Me.dium users are visiting.

It makes sense that Me.dium has created a widget for its users, and it makes more sense for Me.dium users to interact with it, and less so for site visitors, as most of the connections found on the widget are not directly correlated with content found on the initial site. The majority of Me.dium’s service could eventually be incorporated in this widget, which would make it more interactive and that much more appealing. Me.dium received $15 million in funding earlier this year, and has thus far used the funding to begin competing with other social browsing tools, such as The Coop and Clutzr.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

Oddcast, the developer of SitePal, is officially launching the Voki Platform, its free avatar builder. Read our initial review of Voki here.

The platform is for online communities to offer Voki avatars to their users, which can be placed on social networking profiles like MySpace, or sent via email and mobile devices. One benefit for the companies that implement Voki’s platform is the option of creating a branded playground for the avatars. Use the playgrounds for contests, discussion boards, and games as a social network for avatars within the existing community.

You’ll remember that Voki avatars are a bit more feature rich than Meez or WeeMee, in that you can add voice messages so that your avatar can speak. This is more similar to Gizmoz. Leave a voice message from your phone or microphone in order to make your avatar speak. In other avatar community news, SimpsonizeMe and Windows Live GoPets are both similar community offerings.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mediabuyerplanner.com *)

McDonald's is hoping to harness word-of-mouth with a new campaign in support of the launch of its new Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap.

The campaign, which includes TV, radio, and print, in addition to its online elements, encourages consumers to send emails featuring Oddcast's talking avatars, writes MediaPost.

In the viral component of the campaign, a visitor to MySnackTime.com answers a series of questions and creates an avatar who then can be sent to friends. All the possible scenarios focus on the theme of inviting friends to join in a Micky D's snack time.

McDonald's also sent Snack Teams to hand out cards good for a free wrap to pedestrians on the streets of New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago and Miami.

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(* Source: Drew Neisser *)

Since social networking hit its tipping point, mainstream websites are cannibalizing eachother and fighting for members. The future leaders of the pack have gotten smart and developed niche sites that slice the pie into tiny, yet dedicated, slivers. What follows -- in alphabetical order -- are some of the most promising examples of, dare we say, social networking 2.0, as selected by the marketers at Renegade.
These rankings were principally subjective, based on our intuitive understanding of the social networking universe coupled with extensive industry research. Our information sources include syndicated research data and extensive conversations with media reps and several trade publications.

We've included Nielsen//NetRatings unique visitor estimates when available.

Now let's take a look.

aSmallWorld
Membership with the most exclusive social networking site on the web has its privileges. aSmallWorld is an invite-only space for wealthy jet setters and bold-faced names. You'll need to know someone on the inside -- like for instance Tiger Woods, Ivanka Trump, Paul Allen or Naomi Campbell -- in order to cadge an invite. The philosophy is that most people in the world are separated by no more than six degrees, but to get into aSmallWorld, you need to be within three degrees of the elite. Once on the inside, members gain access to private villa parties in Capri, masked balls in Hamburg and polo matches in Buenos Aries.

The founder, a Swedish count, wanted to aggregate the world's most interesting people sharing the world's most interesting information. He figured that in a safe, exclusive environment, the hoi poloi will be more willing to open up and share info with each other, like where to find the best sushi in Tokyo, the best nannies in Manhattan or an Aston Martin for sale. Unlike most social networking sites, membership skews older; 90 percent of users are older than 24.

For marketers, aSmallWorld is like shooting goldfish in a barrel. High-end, luxury brands like Diane von Furstenberg and Moet & Chandon can speak directly to the elite by buying ad space on the site. The psychological drive for exclusivity and status that fuels the popularity of the site also fuels demand for the luxury goods that advertise there.

Buzznet
Estimated unique monthly visitors: 627,000

Buzznet is a site for passionate fans who want to spread the gospel of their taste. Everything is oriented around voting, rating and ranking pop culture by assigning "+Buzz" points to things you find relevant (e.g., "5 songs that changed my life;" "this week's top bands;" "celebrity playlists"). Each week, the members, photos, celebrities, songs, videos and tags that garner the most "+Buzz" points are prominently featured.

Buzznet is an outlet for the heady, breathless enthusiasm typical of a kind of hyperactive sophomore girl who can be heard shrieking about how amazing this or that band is in every high school cafeteria across the land. Sites like Buzznet underscore the radical shift underway in how people form opinions about and attachments to brands. Finding and rewarding a cadre of highly vocal brand cheerleaders to indirectly promote your brand is now a cottage industry within marketing.

Gaia Online
Gaia Online is Second Life for comic book and anime fans, complete with pastel lighting, big-eyed avatars, Hobbit huts, fairy wings and magical wolves. Fantasy role-play is par for the course.

With nearly 2 million unique visitors logging onto the community every month, Gaia bills itself as the world’s most active online community. Sites like Gaia that attract and cater to a very specific interest group demonstrate that no matter how niche a product is, there will always be an online community of potential users.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Roy Carthy *)

Tel-Aviv based MeeMix launches its beta program today. Like Pandora, MeeMix is a community music/Internet radio service for the 15-35 demographic. The idea being that any user can create a highly personalized, taste-based music channel with minimum fuss. The major differentiation between MeeMix and Pandora or Last.fm is the way it goes about forecasting personal taste.

Typically, there are two ways to perform such predictions:

1. “Nature” (Pandora) – Decision making is based upon on the compatibility between one song and another—personal taste not being part of the equation.
   
2. “Nurture” (Last.fm) – Decision making is based upon a environmental factors—song compatibility not being part of the equation

Steve Krause wrote a great post about Nature vs. Nurture in the music space.

Like Pandora, MeeMix breaks down each song, artist and user down to an elemental level. Then its recommendation engine analyzes the combination of a user’s profile, music selection and behavior to create a customized radio station. In my personal tests, MeeMix’s music selection was near perfect.

MeeMix has a rich social networking feature set, including reviews, thoughts (public user postings), secrets (private user postings), etc. The most important of these features in my opinion is being able to listen to the same song as other channel subscribers in real time. And for the egomaniacs in our audience, you can even print off a t-shirt with your channel name and number of subscribers (courtesy of the Zazzle API).

MeeMix was founded in mid-2006 by CEO Gilad Shlang, formerly the User Experience Manager at 888.com, and Dr. Ricardo Tarrasch (Chief Scientist), also formerly of 888.com with a doctorate degree in Biopsychology. The two possess in-depth experience in creating and leveraging user experience and communities based upon algorithmic forecasting. The company is funded by angels and currently employs a team of 9, including the former lead developer of ICQ, musicologists, and a community/SEO specialist.

The business model is currently based on album sales and will expand to songs, ringtones, and ads. Seeing as there’s so much algorithmic magic under the hood, I won’t be surprised if in a year or two licensing its engine will become MeeMix’s core business.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Pete Cashmore *) 

Disney has acquired the kid-focused virtual world of Club Penguin in a deal totaling $700 million: $350 million cash and the chance to earn out $350 million more between now until 2009.

The Habbo Hotel-like world for kids seems like a perfect fit for Disney, with its 12 million 6-14 year old users falling right within Disney’s target demographic. The game launched in October 2005 and has 700,000 paid subscribers. There will be no immediate changes to the site, and the founders will join Disney.

Disney recently launched a MySpace-type site for preteens called Disney XD.

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More on virtual hang outs 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source:Kristen Nicole *

Goombah, the social music discovery site, now lets you vote for and download tracks from the 3rd annual Starbucks Music Makers Competition. The 49 semi-finalists have been announced today.

The online contest portion of the contest is powered by Goombah, and is extending voting rights to users. Listen to the music of the semi-finalists and vote for who you like best. Download the tracks that you like as well. Included in this promo is a Starbucks radio player, which has been created by Goombah. Email the player out to friends or put it on your MySpace, hi5 or Piczo profile.

The competition will take place at 7 different Starbucks locations in August and September as well, and the finalists will be chosen from both the online voting and the decision from the judges. The final performance will take place on October 11, 2007 at Hard Rock Cafe in Boston. The musicians that are participating will be able to extend their reach and hopefully jump start their career as well, given the distribution network of Starbucks and its dedication to indie artists.

YouTube is also holding a music contest, allowing submissions from users, and Babelgum has been partnering with several film festivals in a similar manner to how Goombah has teamed up with Starbucks.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

Wikia is teaming up with Playxpert, the provider of in-game community management tools, to launch the Playxpert Wikia widget.

What Playxpert does is offer an in-game tool that appears as a semi-transparent overlay that displays as you play your game. It is widely used with the MMOG market, and enables players to communicate with each other via forums and chat, as well as manage their music or monitoring system diagnostics. It’s a customizable tool that lets users pick and choose what feature to include for a particular game. This widget, now combined with Wikia, will offer wikis for group collaboration efforts as well. Users can share stories and game information, track history, and leverage the larger community without leaving the game. The new widget will be available for download later this afternoon.

In other MMOG news, Curse and Guildcafe have both raised funding for their gaming networks, and further, Curse has added several social networking tools on its site, also partnering with Wikia.

 More related articles

Posted by brian tiong at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

comScore has released the results of a study regarding the global reach of major social networks, indicating that these networks have had substantial growth in the past year.

MySpace tops the charts with over 114 million global visitors age 15+ in June, 2007. This is a 72% increase from last year. Facebook had more growth than MySpace, with a 270% increase, going up to 52.2 million visitors. Bebo is up 172% reaching 18.2 million while Tagged has seen the highest growth factor, up 774%, gaining 13.2 million visitors. comScore notes that this global growth means that online social networking is not a fad, but a larger expression of global Internet culture that’s becoming more integrated every year.

The report also highlights a trend we’ve already been alerted to–Bebo dominating in Europe while MySpace and Facebook hold the top spots in North America. Also noted in this report is the trend that major social networks appeal to certain groups, allowing them to become popular in different regions. This shows, on a geographical scale, the correlation between physical communities and online networks.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: BBC News *)

Some admit that they have only downloaded legally "once"

Those are the key findings of a new survey conducted by analyst firm Entertainment Media Research.

The survey found that some 53% of people actively surf social networking sites to find music.

A further 30% said they went on to buy or download music that they had discovered on a social network site.

Personal taste

On popular sites such as MySpace and Bebo, the numbers of people who use sites to find music rises to 75% and 72% respectively.

Some 46% of those surveyed wished it was easier to purchase music they had discovered on social networking sites, for instance via a "buy now" button on the site.

John Enser, head of music at the law firm Olswang that co-authored the survey, believes social networking sites could represent a new platform for the music industry.

"Surfing these sites and discovering music is widespread with the latest generation of consumers but the process of actually purchasing the music needs to be made easier," he said.

The survey - which interviewed 1,700 music consumers aged 13-60 - found that music was increasingly key to social networkers. Some 39% have embedded music in their personal profiles.

Seventy percent said they did this to show off their taste, with half saying it was a good way of reflecting their personality.

More here 

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