Mashable! |
| Me.dium Moves into Social Search as Yahoo Launches New Boss Platform Posted: 09 Jul 2008 11:00 PM CDT
What do you do with piles of data about what web sites more than 2 million people are browsing and paying attention to? If you’re Me.dium, become a social search engine, with a little help from an ambitious new initiative from Yahoo called Search Boss (Build Your Own Search Engine). Tonight, the company is unveiling an alpha of Me.dium Social Search, which analyzes data gathered from the 2M or so people who have installed Me.dium's Social Toolbar and offers it up as a search engine. So, search for "Barack Obama" for example and you'll get results of web pages with a myriad of data about them, based on the actions of Me.dium users. That data includes:
 Thus, versus traditional search engines where the top results are fairly static (a search for Barack Obama on Google will likely return his official page and Wikipedia entry from now until eternity), the results in Me.dium Social Search are dynamic, moving up and down based on Me.dium attention data from Me.dium users. While this in itself is interesting, Me.dium realizes it's probably not enough to supplant the current search leaders. Thus, the company is turning to a new offering from Yahoo, also being announced this evening, called Build Your Own Search Engine (Boss). Boss is an open API for Yahoo's entire search infrastructure, and can be completely private labeled, with the one major caveat being that you utilize Yahoo for your search advertising.
Me.dium is using Boss to offer a hybrid search product: clicking "search" from the Me.dium search page will yield a mixture of Yahoo results and Me.dium results, while clicking "I Feel Social" will return just the results from Me.dium. Results based on Me.dium data are denoted with an orange icon. Search based on attention data is a nut that several companies are looking to crack – for example, fav.or.it is looking at how people interact with items in their RSS reader to determine the most relevant news. What's intriguing about Me.dium's approach is that there really isn't anything users need to do to feed in data other than keep browsing the Web with the Me.dium toolbar installed, and Me.dium has already established a significant userbase. Me.dium is also first out the door using Yahoo Boss, a smart play from the beleaguered search giant that goes up against Google Custom Search, with a few advantages like more control over branding and look + feel. Me.dium Social Search is now available at me.dium.com/search and starting immediately, all users of the Me.dium Social Toolbar. The latter gives Me.dium a very nice initial distribution for their offering that will give them tons of data to help refine the search tool moving forward. --- Me.dium’s Role Reversal: Neighborhoods |
| Silly Question: Is Congress Afraid of the Internet? Posted: 09 Jul 2008 10:00 PM CDT
It’s hard to no where to begin in analyzing the fallout from yesterday’s “revelation” that certain members of Congress aren’t quite comfortable with other members of Congress conversing directly with the public via electronic means. For most folks who read the letter, it’s pretty plain to see that House Democrat Michael Capuano isn’t interested in de-regulating the processes by which Congress communicate with their constiuency. Some folks, most noteably a number of other Web 2.0 and technology pundits, say that I’ve completely gotten the gist of the letter completely wrong. It wouldn’t normally warrant a second mention, except the opinions of a lot of folks I respect as pundits here are in such stark disagreement with me. Eric Eldon, Mike Massnick and Tim O’Reilley have all stated either here or elsewhere that I’m completely mis-reading the letter, and Erin Kotecki Vest even went so far as to say that I’ve been “pwned” by the Republicans. The truth of the matter, though, is that Representative Capuano is known to be a bit of a Luddite. In an interview with the Washington Post, he described the Internet as “a necessary evil” and that he “make[s] no bones about it. I don’t know anything about this stuff.” In the face of those quotes and that which is implicit to Capuano’s requests to bring this willy-nilly communication back under the control of an internal congressional commission, it’s obvious to me that instead of saying “hey, this is something that encourages principles of democracy - let’s change the rules to make this more plausible,” he said instead “let’s engage in a long involved process of ‘making this type of communication available’ under some sort of governmentally controlled tool.”
That either means imposing restrictions on how the congressmen use Twitter, filling half of each of their tweets with disclaimers and such, or waiting for congress’s IT department to develop a stable twitter of their own, and encourage all of America to go and sign up for that. Both of these moves mean consigning the communication to obscurity or oblivion, and anyone who understands how governmental beauracracy works knows this. It’s always dangerous to assume and assign motive when it isn’t explicitly stated, but there are a few obvious answers that leap out at me: it’s politically motivated to silence Representative Culberson, the move of someone who doesn’t understand the implications of their words, or it is a move by a Luddite to prevent this newfangled technology from infecting the hallowed halls of Capitol Hill (or maybe a bit of all?). Even the public statement from the Rep. Capuano further muddles the issue. On the one hand, he states that “the ONLY item we seek to address is LOOSENING existing rules to allow Members to post videos,” while on the other hand says “Our only concern is commercialization” and goes on further:
His statements display what can only be described as a shocking ignorance of the way the Internet works and what online user behavior is. Advertising is omnipresent. His statements make the assumption that everyone browsing the web is a blithering numbskull who can’t tell the difference between their congressman and an erectile dysfunction pill. His demand that commercialization be removed from all communications tools used by congressmen is laughable (particularly to us who know exactly how much of the web relies, over-relies some would say, on an advertising-based business model - that and the fact that Twitter and Qik currently don’t have ads running on them). Fortunately, most folks aren’t taking a chance on this, and a quickly growing movement has already been started by the Sunlight Foundation to bring more attention by the general public to what’s going on with this issue (not that it hasn’t already seen a fair share of attention). --- Congress Wants to Investigate P2Ps |
| Merlin Accuses Last.FM of Illegal Music Sharing Posted: 09 Jul 2008 05:53 PM CDT
Merlin sends us a bit of news today that comes hot on the heels of an announcement from Last.FM to their member artists (a program I have participated in the past), announcing that they’ll now be awarding royalties to qualifying independent artists on Last.FM. Shortly after Paul posted on this news, Merlin alerted us that they “have for the last few months been negotiating with Last.fm regarding a non exclusive blanket licence and a settlement agreement on behalf of Merlin members” and that these negotiations “have stalled.” They also accuse Last.FM of having profited off the backs of independent artists illegally up until this point, and that they show no signs of willingness to make restitution for this past sin. We contacted a representative of Last.FM for comment, but the fact that they appeared to have been blindsided by this accusation as well as the fact that it was around 11 PM London time was probably the culprit behind the gruff declaration of “no comment” for this post (though the representative added that start of business tomorrow, they’ll examine the issue and likely have some sort of statement in response).
If I had to guess (and given the lack of independent comment at the moment, I may have to), I’d guess this is the reason talks broke down - Last.fm didn’t see a need to deal with Yet Another Intermediary Record Label, and openly invited all the artists to deal directly with them (and ultimately bring home more of their royalty monies in the process). --- Merlin Becomes Fifth Biggest Music Rights Holder |
| The Native iPhone 3G Apps We’ll See This Week (and Some We Won’t) Posted: 09 Jul 2008 05:45 PM CDT
Nothing like a cool new device to close out a hot summer week, right? Sure. Much more important, however, is the associated iPhone 2.0 software update. The arrival of the new software package is something that has many in the consumer crowd eager to outfit their flash drives with an array of third-party developments by way of the long-awaited iPhone App Store. The question now is, what can we expect to see this week, and what won't we see? Here are some names that we think will whet your palates. Social Networking:
Also built with user location in mind, SpotJots allows users to microblog their way through life with a geo-tagging element tossed in for good measure. What does it take to get premium placement on Apple's website, anyway? "Twitterrific uses iPhone OS technologies extensively including Core Location to integrate geographic location and help people communicate their whereabouts, Core Animation for subtle animation effects to reinforce state changes, WebKit for the built-in browser view and integration with Safari, libxml to provide the fastest and most efficient parsing of XML data returned by the Twitter REST API, and integration with Maps making it easy for people to locate friends, family or co-workers." Publishing: This is another item that was featured during the iPhone-centric WWDC keynote, and quite an attractive one, I must say. The application allows the user to quickly post text and photos to the Web, all very intuitively. News Reading: Also demonstrated at WWDC was the AP's Mobile News Network program, which builds upon the concept first introduced through its Web-based iPhone service APnews.com. It will be available free from the App Store later this week. This one is certainly the most appealing option for the category currently. That's because the AP's feeds only give you so much variety. NewsGator's NetNewsWire, on the other hand, is as customizable as can be. Crafted for a preliminary demo at WWDC (Clint Ecker of Ars Technica seemed to enjoy a trial run of the application), was purportedly ready for a launch in the middle of June, so cross your fingers. If you're hoping to pull feeds from multiple sources, this one is definitely something to watch for. Photo Browsing/Sharing: We shared the news of Phanfare’s iPhone support last month. Like the SixApart’s TypePad application, Phanfare utilizes the iPhone’s camera to take pictures and upload them to the Web, along with titles or captions. Entertainment: Conventional radio may not be seeing the kind of audience that it had a decade or so ago, when the iPod was still just a figment of the imagination. But it's still around. Over-the-air, over-the-Web, from zero gravity. Whichever. You can get radio any way you like these days. And AOL appears to have spent time ensuring the relevancy of its own digital audio streams as well as some 150 CBS channels by piecing together an application that will determine through Apple's Core Location technology a user's position, and present choices for quick and easy listening, either over Wi-Fi or even over a cellular connection. Miscellaneous: We touched on this startup some days ago, at which time they notified us of an iPhone application launch scheduled for July 11. Simply put, Where The Locals Eat gives you a list of the Top 100 restaurants, segmented by food type, in 50 American cities. … And The Question Marks: Yes, there's still that merger with Sirius Radio up in the air (so to speak), but according to Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer of XM, Vernon Irvin, the satellite radio broadcaster is working on an iPhone client. Given the likelihood that an such a service will require a monthly fee from users, though, I'd put my money on AOL Radio coming out far ahead in download count when all is said and done. SlingPlayer Mobile
It's been proven possible. How soon 'til it arrives in the App Store? (Ditto for Flixwagon.) --- iPhone Apps Can Void your Apple Warranty |
| Create Crowdfunded Fashion with Cameesa [The Startup Review] Posted: 09 Jul 2008 04:35 PM CDT
Editor’s Note:If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here. STARTUP DETAILS: Company Name: Cameesa 20 word description: Cameesa is crowdfunded fashion. We are a clothing company run by those who wear it. CEO’s 100 word description: The idea with Cameesa is to get more people involved in the clothing creation process. We use crowdfunding to let the community decide what we make. The people who find and fund designs (called Supporters) then share in the profits along with the artist. There is no voting or competitions; the community truly has control over what gets made.
Mashable’s Take: Launched in mid-June, Cameesa is a new clothing company hailing from Chicago, where it faces some steep competition from another dominant home team–Threadless. The Cameesa t-shirt company doesn’t necessarily promote designs through a contest, but still requires support for a given design before it can be sold through its online store. The support Cameesa artists gain is instead in the form of micro-investments from individuals. Give about $20 for each design you support and you’re putting up the money for their Cameesa-approved design to make it to the storefront. It’s a model that’s very similar in theory to Sellaband, which accepts micro-investments from several people and uses the capital towards production costs. The benefit is that these supporters get ongoing revenue from sales and the artist gets to grow their presence (and income).
The question remains whether or not it’s worth it to artists and supporters in the long run. Part of that answer could be boiled down to promotional options provided by Cameesa, and the drive of both artists and supporters. Some widgets, badges and third-party applications on social media sites could begin to help out towards this end.
Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials  |
| New Series: Authors @ Mashable [50 Book Giveaway] Posted: 09 Jul 2008 04:34 PM CDT
We’re excited to announce Authors@Mashable, a new series that will provide Mashable readers with the unique opportunity to interact and engage with today's Web 2.0 authors. Each author and their book will be showcased over a two week period, with an introduction and book giveaway, direct correspondence with our audience, and a final live interactive Q&A brought you by Y! Live. Kicking off the series are authors Ori and Rom Brafman, with their New York Times Bestseller Sway.
Ori Brafman is no stranger to Web culture. If you haven’t red Ori Brafman’s first book, The Starfish and the Spider, be sure to check it out and I think you will all enjoy the chapter “The Spider, The Starfish, and the President of the Internet”. Ori will kick off the series on Tuesday, July 15th with a personal introduction to his book and open the comments section for questions, suggestions and praise/criticism. He will follow-up with two separate posts, then everyone will have the chance to interact with Ori and Rom Brafman via a live Q&A on Wednesday, July 22nd. If you already own the book then get your questions ready for Ori. If you don’t own the book and you live in the contiguous US States, now’s your chance. The first 50 people to properly fill out the form will receive a copy of the book just in time for participation. Act fast! Also, feel free to read an exclusive first chapter (with preface) through here. Update: The free 50 books are now gone (confirmations will be sent). To everyone who missed the opportunity, please feel free to pick up a copy at your local book store or Barnes&Noble or Amazon.com --- Authors at Mashable |
| Microhoo: What’s Really Happening (and Do We Care?) [video] Posted: 09 Jul 2008 04:31 PM CDT
Microhoo completely dominated the technology news headline space this Monday. Again. For the eleventy-billionth time since this stupid concept of Microsoft acquiring Yahoo was brought up a few months ago. We’re pretty sure you’re sick of hearing about it, and we know we’re sick of writing about it. On Monday, Stan put a piece of satire together for commentary on the piece, with the upshot being “it’s 2019, and we’re still rehashing the same story.” Somehow, even though there really isn’t any news to report on this, we keep reporting it. Sean and I, in today’s Mashable Conversations, try to examine why that is. You can download the full episode here. Discussion: Our question to you is whether or not you care? If you do care, we want to know why. Include your comments and discussion below for future inclusion in the show. Never Miss an Episode! --- Yahoo And Microsoft - The Stalemate Continues This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Medialets to Take Crack at Advertising on the iPhone Posted: 09 Jul 2008 03:17 PM CDT
The iPhone Apps Store will presumably make for a fairly substantial cottage industry in the year following its launch this week. And with applications, whether on the desktop, entirely Web-based, or on mobile devices, the issue of support and development costs are on the agenda. Apple partner KPCB has ponied some $100 million to fund software development, which is quite hopeful news for everyone. But eventually the market will have to sustain itself. And a good portion of those making up the third-party set will naturally delve into advertising for financing.
The role of Medialets is to deliver display CPC/CPA-type advertising and give its clients the wherewithal to easily manage and observe analytics and tracking data. Which is of course the logical package for such a company to deliver. Something for the small guy to wrap his head around and use effectively to drive and potentially grow a software business. Will there be enough activity on the iPhone front to make such a network worthwhile? I'd venture to say yes. Several years ago I would've undoubtedly called such an effort silly and wasteful. But seeing as how more and more applications and services require an Internet connection to function properly, and how consumers are increasingly interested in managing data out in the cloud due to the outstanding convenience factor, Medialets' offering for the iPhone class of applications has a strong chance of garnering enough attention among developers.
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| Discover New Music with Muxtape Stumbler Posted: 09 Jul 2008 03:04 PM CDT
Remember Muxtape, that painfully simple yet really effective way of creating online mixtapes, err…muxtapes? I thought it would only appeal for us melancholy types who still can’t get over the wonderful era of cassette tapes, but it caught on; there are many thousands of muxtapes available right now, and a couple of interesting applications grew from the concept. One of these is Muxtape Stumbler, which allows you to find muxtapes according to artist or track. The former, unlike the latter, will yield results which don’t necessary contain the artist you’ve searched for. It doesn’t seem like much, but try it out: I swear it’s the best way to discover new music right now. Besides the search function, Muxtape Stumber also maintains a list of top artists, top tracks and top artist searches featured on the service. It’s fun; the only problem, unfortunately, is that RIAA will probably eventually find out about it. For alternative ways to search Muxtape see MuxFind, a straightforward but also effective search engine.
--- Muxtape. The Simplest Mixtape Service Yet. |
| Glam’s New Ad Exchange Connects Marketers, Publishers, & Ad Networks Posted: 09 Jul 2008 02:40 PM CDT
Glam Media has completed its ad network circle with the revelation of its new vertical called GlamX Ad Exchange. This is an advertising exchange platform that lets marketers, publishers and ad networks connect, giving each more control over their particular aspect of display advertising. The ads can still be placed based on audience and content audiences, but acts as an additional option for ad placement within the larger Glam Media network. The network itself has grown considerably in the past year, having launched a handful of other verticals targeting various needs within the online advertising industry. Glam Evolution, Glam Digital Primetime (for premium display and video Ads) and Glam Interactive Solutions (for custom campaigns) can all work in tandem with GlamX Ad Exchange, to a certain extent.
The GlamX Ad Exchange is hoping to cater to those self-serve aspects of display advertising that don’t always fall into some of the other Glam network verticals. It’s an open exchange where brands can bid on inventory and work within their budgets’ parameters. It also allows publishers to stretch their campaign potential even further and perhaps allow Glam to better manage some of its spillover inventory. Microsoft has turned to YuMe to handle its surplus ad inventory, and Ad-Butterfly has teamed up with Technorati Japan to explore the global implications of an ad exchange platform which can, in many senses, be appealing to a wide range of online advertisers and publishers. --- MySpace and Sony BMG in Music Video Licensing Deal |
| Organizing the FriendFeed Firehose Posted: 09 Jul 2008 01:46 PM CDT
Due to the amount of content people are receiving on FriendFeed, several applications have been developed to make our lives easier. There are some tools that allow for the “basic” uses of FriendFeed, like AlertThingy, Twhirl and MySocial247. These client applications allow a user to read, like and comment on stories just like the Web interface of FriendFeed. You can also view the public feed, or filter for a specific user or service like Twitter. As useful as these applications are, they do not solve the fundamental issue with FriendFeed: there is too much information. As many people say, it is like drinking from a firehose. There have been many discussions on how filtering is needed, or some other way to view information. But not many applications have appeared to fill that need. However, three applications try to make your FriendFeed usage a little easier or just more interesting.
FriendFeedMachine is the simplest offering of the three. It allows you to view activity for everyone just like FriendFeed. You can also mark items as read, which is a big feature missing in FriendFeed. However, the biggest addition it gives you is a “good friends” list. You can add someone as a good friend by clicking on their avatar and checking the good friend checkbox. This gives you a list of users that you want to read separate from your normal friends’ activity. This is a helpful feature, but having only one list available and limited customization options restricts what you can filter. NoiseRiver
Your interests are specified by keywords which can also be imported from Delicious and you specify how much you like or hate a topic using the slider. You specify your neighborhood in the same way, just supplying the nickname of the FriendFeed user. NoiseRiver then uses this information to display how much you should like a shared item. This allows you to quickly browse your activity based on your interests and the recommendations generated by NoiseRiver. The interestingness measures become really useful if you use the search feature. Searching on FriendFeed results in a lot of information, getting the green and red bars within the search results is immensely helpful. Another feature that will be coming soon is something called “Smart Social Connexions”. The bigger the intersection (red zone in the pic) of two persons’ sets is, the more likely they are to be real friends in a social context. This intersection is based on the interests and neighborhoods of the two users. Having a better friend recommendation will also give you a better list of recommended items. However, the extremely cool features only help with the scanning of items of FriendFeed, and early adopters are notoriously fickle so their interests may change rapidly. You could still miss shared items that could be of interest because of the proliferation of activity. mioNews
The topic folders are really useful because a lot of good content can slip down the activity stream before you get a chance to view it. If you select a user’s activity, the right side of the page has two panels which can be display top & bottom or left & right. The first panel lists the items in the activity stream. The second panel shows the detail of the item with likes and comments, just like it would be shown on the FriendFeed pages. Obviously, the advantage of using mioNews is the fact that you can keep items as unread and view a particular user’s activity. You can also create folders to group friends in order to get the same “good friends” list as FriendFeedMachine, or even a group of friends that are “must reads”. This folder navigation is probably very familiar to many people, but it does not really solve the information overload problem. Conclusion Given that these applications are fairly new, it is logical that they have focused on a particular feature that they felt was needed. However, these applications need to mature before they can become the ideal FriendFeed client. The interestingness measurements of NoiseRiver could really streamline your daily perusal of FriendFeed, but you could miss things from people you really want to read. MioNews takes the folder organization approach but tends to miss the recommendation side of NoiseRiver. However, the author of mioNews, Patrick Lightbody, did reveal a little magic in the background:
Now, if we could convince the developers of mioNews and NoiseRiver to join forces and feature sets, we could have the ideal client. You could get the familiar folder interface for general organization, interesting items would be highlighted, interesting search results get highlights and users with similar tastes could be recommended, all in a robust user interface. This type of application could definitely drive more mainstream usage and relegate FriendFeed to become just a data platform instead of the destination. --- FriendFeed Launches Search |
| 30+ Awesome Sites for Streaming Music Posted: 09 Jul 2008 01:16 PM CDT
Whether you’re interested in general streaming music, mixtapes, music discovery, or more, the Internet offers a plethora of streaming music services. Tell us which are your favorites. General Streaming
AH.fm - Streaming techno and dance music, as well as a forum for you to discuss with other fans. AmazingTunes.com - Search for artists you want to hear or choose from a list of stations. Has a pop out player so you can listen as you browse other sites on the Web. AOL Radio - Powered by CBS Radio, AOL Radio brings you talk, streaming music and actual radio stations. Deezer.com - Part social network, all music. The site allows you to listen to free streaming music, build your own playlists, share them with friends and even embed music on other sites.
Free.Napster.com - Free streaming music from Napster that includes full albums. Grooveshark.com - Build your own playlist, as you go along, save it, and you can listen to it again in the future. Also suggests similar songs and more. iLike.com - Features a mixture of full songs and samples that you can listen to. An extremely popular app on many social networks. iTunes - While not a Web application, the vast majority of us have it already installed on our systems. Just click on the “Radio” link and listen to different Internet radio stations from all over the world. Last.fm - Last.fm follows what you listen to and then makes suggestions of what else you may like, or you can also just dive right in, listening to whatever you feel like. Live365.com - A mixture of free stations and ones only available to VIP subscribers, it covers just about every genre of music you can think of. Magnatune.com - A home for independent artists where you can either stream their albums, or buy them by naming your price, starting at $5.00. MikesRadioWorld.com - A guide to over 5,000 streaming radio stations from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Europe. MP3.com - Stream the music, or download it free. Lets you jump around choosing the tunes you want to hear. MusicMesh.net - Start with one album, listen to it in its entirety or just one track, and then check out other artists and albums that are of a similar vein. RadioTime.com - Collects streams from radio stations from all over, putting them in one easy to use directory. Real Player - Download Real Player and then play free music via their Rhapsody service. SHOUTcast.com - Using a program such as Winamp, choose the radio station of your choice from around the world, and “Tune In”. Slacker.com - Listen to their pre-built stations, or start building one of your own. Streampad.com - Search for music to listen to, or point it directly to a page you want to listen to, including podcasts. TheSixtyOne.com - Streams music and then allows you to purchase the tracks via Amazon.com’s MP3 store. Site also has social aspects allowing users to “bump” songs up playlists as well as make leaderboards by building their own playlists. Yahoo Music - Only works with Internet Explorer (still), but streams music from artists or by station. Mix Tapes
Mixwit.com - Like Muxtape, you can create and listen to “mix tapes” and then share them with friends. Muxtape.com - Not your typical streaming site as users make up their own “mix tapes” of up to 12 songs, and then share them with anyone. Spinjay.com - Create playlists and have people vote on them to make you a popular “DJ”, or simply browse through the existing ones and listen. Music Discovery Blip.fm -A “Twitter” for music that lets you tell others what you are listening to and embeds the music in your post, making an ever growing playlist by following the main timeline of the site. Check out the Mashable Conversations interview with Gavin Hayes, lead singer of Dredg, we did a while back about the site. Finetune.com - As you find music you like, you can add it to a playlist which you can then embed in your site. Musicovery.com - Name your “mood” and Musicovery starts playing music based on that. It then follows a progression based on your votes for the song, or you can jump around on the other suggestions on the screen. Pandora.com - Many people were depressed when Pandora had to shut down its non-U.S. streams, but the site lives on. Enter the name of a song or artist you like, the site analyzes it, and builds a channel on that style of music. Soundpedia.com - Similar to Pandora in that you start with artist and then it builds a station based on that style/genre of music. Music Search Dizzler.com - Search for streaming music, radio stations, video and more. Jiwa.fm - Search for music you like and Jiwa will search for streams of it. SeeqPod.com - Even though its legality has been called into question, Seeqpod allows you to search the Internet for publicly available MP3s for you to listen to. Skreemr.com - Like SeeqPod, Skreemr allows you to search for all of those allusive tracks you’d rather just listen to then admit you have them on your iPod. [image credit: hryckowian] --- Billboard Top 100 Now Includes Yahoo and AOL Music |
| SavvyAuntie Launches: Everything You Need to Spoil & Send ‘Em Home Posted: 09 Jul 2008 01:15 PM CDT
I had the pleasure of becoming a godmother at the age of 17, an aunt three years later, and now I have five beautiful godchildren and nieces that I get to spoil–and then send back home. So when I learned about SavvyAuntie, a new beta site that launched today dedicated to godmothers, aunties and all women that love children, it was a welcome surprise. And in terms of resources, SavvyAuntie is far more than what you’d expect. There’s not just gift and activity ideas, but articles on gaining children’s trust and saving for college. It’s practically a parenting site, with the aunt in mind. And searching through all the resourceful content SavvyAuntie has to offer, the filters are quite useful as well.
There’s also a community involved on SavvyAuntie, featuring editorials, blogs, discussion boards, and more. The content found across the site will soon have the option of being added to your favorites and subscriptions, so you can keep up with any new items that have been added. Connecting directly with other members isn’t yet an easy task, so the community features are stopped short at this point. But in viewing some of the options on SavvyAuntie that have not yet been activated, it’s clear that the site will soon become a more feature-rich community. Other upcoming features include a scrapbook tool that lets you chronicle your activities with the little ones in your life.
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| Last.fm Makes Artist Royalty Program Official Posted: 09 Jul 2008 12:39 PM CDT
It was January when Last.fm first mentioned a business model that would allow independent artists unassociated with a label or middle agency to establish direct relations with the music service to generate royalties. Today the Last.fm marks the official launch of the effort. Dubbed the Artist Royalty Program, participants can sign up for the program upon upload of their music, and whether their material is broadcast to a listener on-demand or through a radio shuffle, royalties can be collected. Last.fm says that it first began allowing artists to join back when it was first introduced, and has so far tallied some 450,000 tracks. Now that it has made the option official, it is perhaps safe to assume hundreds of thousands more will join the fold as a result.
Last.fm made news recently when it lost a partnership with Warner Music Group about 16 months after it had signed a deal with the content owner. The split was blamed in part on Last.fm's royalty distribution. Suffice it to say that the ARP will almost certainly encounter no trouble to that effect. In fact, if Last.fm manages the program effectively (which I myself don't see any reason to think it won't), it may well drive many more artists that would ordinarily sign contracts to trend toward a new order devoid of managerial influence, either from the RIAA or any other industry outfit of such ilk. The percentage of revenue given to record companies by Last.fm and CBS that makes its way to the pockets of musicians isn't likely very large. The ARP, meanwhile, has the chance to garner some independents quite healthy returns. --- Windows Media Center Gets Third-Party Last.fm Support |
| Is Google Building a Media Empire Based on Your Searches? Of Course. Posted: 09 Jul 2008 11:55 AM CDT
Yesterday Google entered the realm of virtual worlds with the launch of Lively. While some bloggers and analysts were surprised by the move, Hitwise is taking the news as an opportunity to say "we told you so!" The stat tracking company is toting the fact they predicted such a move back in January. They made that call based on clickstream data (i.e. – what categories people are clicking on in Google search), and have created a chart showing the top 20 categories and which properties Google owns within them:  In turn, it becomes pretty clear how Google is going about launching new products or acquiring others: analyzing the most popular topics within its search engine. Of course, Google then integrates as many of those products as it can into search results too: for example, maps, photos, and YouTube videos now appear for relevant queries, in turn creating more page views across Google properties. So what might be next for Google based on this data? Autos, music, and government are the only categories where Google doesn't have a presence in the top 20 according to Hitwise. An iTunes competitor from Google has been long-rumored, while an automotive search product is hardly a quantum leap. Both could easily be integrated into search results, and unlike some other Google products, have obvious business models attached to them (pay for music downloads, referral fees on auto leads). What do you think Google will launch next? Leave your best guess in the comments so you can also say "I told you so" in a few months --- Google Ditches Video Link, Replaces It With Products |
| CBS and Dogster.com Partner for Summer TV Series Posted: 09 Jul 2008 11:46 AM CDT
CBS is showing much love for four-legged hounds in advance of the premiere of a new television series for the summer season, "Greatest American Dog." It has unleashed a blitz-level marketing campaign that spans virtually every facet of American life, including the online social networking realm. The first episode of "Greatest American Dog" will be broadcast the evening of July 10 and the network is gearing to make it as big a hit as possible. How so? There are the advertisements delivered through cable TV, radio, and movie theaters. Print gets its share. Some supermarkets have video displays. So-called "dog walker street teams" in New York are commissioned to spread the word. Hot dog stands will be branded accordingly. Dogster.com is getting some attention, too. Yes, the pooch-friendly social network, home to hundreds of thousands of users, will have "Greatest American Dog" fan club groups to complement the weekly shows, where network members can converse about the stars and the inevitably under-appreciated actors. Members can also see highlights as well as teasers of upcoming episodes. All that in addition to customary promotions shown via front page advertising and through the Dog Blog and newsletter. Considering the popularity of live dog competitions on television, CBS's summer series is likely to garner ample attention as well. Will the presence of "Greatest American Dog" on Dogster increase interest in the website? Perhaps. My sense is that any additional traffic will be brought on by the most devoted of pet owners around the nation, though, so growth would be relatively limited, given the extent to which Dogster has developed since its founding in 2004. That being said, the more the merrier, eh?
--- Dogster and NBC Partner for Dog Show USA |
| VideoEgg Beefs Up Ads, Gets More Local and Interactive Posted: 09 Jul 2008 10:25 AM CDT
VideoEgg, a company repositioned earlier this year to serve exclusively as an advertisement network for clients with a lean toward Web video, has unveiled today some new features added to its service that it claims will offer marketers the chance to create a "deeper engagement" level and thus make their respective campaigns more effective.
VideoEgg's developments, built to attract as much consumer interest as possible, are being promoted to pursue, as was described above, an increased amount of engagement with viewers. Not CPM, or Cost Per Mille (M=Mille=1000). Rather, CPE, or Cost Per Engagement. The company, while having established relations with some of the most mainstream brands in existence today, including Disney, Microsoft, and Hershey's, is intent on increasing the impact of its advertisements in order to maintain greater efficiency in the market.
That seems the logical path to take. While banner ads are certainly more effective than spots in physical copies of magazines and newspapers, they are far from the perfect method for marketers to implement. VideoEgg may well be on to something promising with its new five-part initiative. --- VideoEgg Partners With imeem, Metacafe, Buzznet |
| Praized Offers Websites Free Local Search Posted: 09 Jul 2008 09:18 AM CDT
Local search is one of those things you typically find on niche sites for events or real estate communities, and the mobile local search sector is growing steadily as GPS-enabled phones provide more relevancy and practical features for end users. But with a new distributed search tool called Praized, any publisher can add local search and community reviews to their site. This is done by a Praized-powered search that lets your site visitors search for a particular keyword in a given location. Results are ranked based on user feedback, which comes from the Praized community–not necessarily your own. That means you get to tap into a network that may be much larger than your own user base in order to provide relevant search results for a given local search query.
So if Praized already has the community, where did all the data come from? A working relationship with Yellow Pages and Localeze gave Praized a large database of local business profiles to start with, and it’s been building up its community from there. Users can vote a location up or down, and can add tags and comments so that the database is continually updated. The providers of the initial data set (Yellow Pages and Localeze) receive user-generated tweaks to their existing database and publishers get user-supplemented information that can be passed onto end users.
If I were a happenstance user of a participating website that installed Praized, I wouldn’t be very encouraged to immediately sign up for Praized in order to interact with the search results, but I do like the idea of a distributed local search results. Such data can be used for a number of things, including recommendations via another third party service, and I’m glad to see such community-driven content being used for a directly implemented option that others can use for their advantage. |
| Dimdim Raises $6M for Open Source Web Meetings Posted: 09 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT
Open source Web meeting company Dimdim has just raised a $6 million Series B round of funding, led by existing investors Index Ventures, Nexus India Capital, and Draper Richards, out of the US, Europe and Asia. Having launched its private beta nearly a year ago at DEMOfall 2007, Dimdim’s open source Web meeting project has grown to reach hundreds of thousands of users, and has been downloaded a reported 250,000 times. Being an open source project, Dimdim is also free for users, providing an alternative to other Web-based conference tools that dominate the space. Dimdim features the tools you’d expect from a prominent Web-based conference tool, including the ability to share desktops, chat and broadcast via webcam. While Dimdim hasn’t released any specifics about what the latest round of funding will go towards, the company plans on building out its feature set, and further marketing its service. That means working closely with developers and potential user bases to find better ways in which to implement its free service.
In its efforts to defeat the likes of WebEx, Dimdim has promoted the cost-efficient aspects of its open-source product, and has been steadily rolling out a series of updates to go along with this. The latest, Project Eagle, was a direct offering to the developer community. The result has been some interesting applications that aren’t even tied in with business use for Web meetings. As Dimdim expands its marketing efforts and seeks out more users, I think a focus on the non-business demographic could be beneficial, especially as chat platforms are being leveraged for multimedia communication purposes. VoIP services like Jajah have found a road to expansion with increasingly deep integration with other social media and networking sites, and I think Web meetings have reached a point where this is useful as well. --- Dimdim Launches Open Source Web Meeting Service |
| First iPhone Reviews Don’t Reveal the Crucial Thing: GPS Reception Quality Posted: 09 Jul 2008 07:09 AM CDT Everyone’s talking about the first three hands-on iPhone 3G reviews, coming from ATD’s Mossberg, NY Times’s Pogue and USA Today’s Baig.
Why am I so bent on GPS? Well, besides it being the only real novelty in the new iPhone (3G is merely a faster GPRS/EDGE), anyone who actually uses GPS knows that A-GPS is useless in many situations. In the mountains and forests, you need good satellite reception, as Wi-Fi and cell tower triangulation will be of little help there. USA Today’s review offers shamefully little on the subject. This quote, however, instills hope:
If it’s accurate in the car, that means it actually works in the car - unless it was A-GPS all the way. Owners of Nokia N95, one of the most popular smartphones with built-in GPS, know what I’m talking about, since N95 GPS pretty much works only beneath a clear sky. I don’t really trust Baig’s review, since he didn’t put much focus on GPS, anyway.
NY Times’ review disagrees. This quote…
…if I’m translating it correctly, means that Apple admits satellite GPS reception in the iPhone cannot measure up to standalone GPS units, while this quote…
…means that iPhone’s built-in GPS doesn’t work all that well in the car. And if it doesn’t work well in the car, it’s safe to assume that it’s nearly as bad as Nokia N95’s GPS. Walt Mossberg doesn’t even mention GPS, besides merely stating that “it now sports a GPS chip for better location sensing.” It seems we’ll have to wait a little longer until we get real reviews, but deep inside I still hope that the satellite GPS reception is at least good enough for in-car usage, otherwise we’ll again be forced to use third party Bluetooth GPS receivers. [image credit: www.appleiphonereview.com] --- World’s Simplest iPhone App |
| Qik Mobile Live Streaming Straight to Mashable Events Pages Posted: 09 Jul 2008 07:07 AM CDT
If you are joining Mashable on any or all of our 7 city US Summer Tour and you use Qik’s mobile live streaming platform, then tell Qik you are “attending!” Thanks to the amazing new events feature, “any Qikker going to an event can ‘Attend Event’ and their Qiks will automatically get categorized into the events page apart from their own profile page…” --- Swarmcast Moves Into Live Streaming |
| Web 2.0 Marketplace Listings for July 9th, 2008 Posted: 09 Jul 2008 06:40 AM CDT  The Web 2.0 Marketplace is a place to list Web 2.0 and "New Media" websites for sale, job offers, consulting services, Facebook development services and more.
New Listings
Recently Added --- Web 2.0 Marketplace: Your Feedback Please |
| Xakasha Relaunches 3D Timelines as Kronomy: 500 Invites for Mashable Readers Posted: 09 Jul 2008 05:54 AM CDT
Xakasha launched late last year as a 3D timeline creation tool for chronicling your life–or anyone else’s life or series of events for that matter. Aside from the graphics and overall experience of flipping through images shared on a Xakasha timeline, the service itself didn’t have a large number of differentiating factors that could help set it apart from other timeline creation services. A recent upgrade and a renaming of the service is changing that for Xakasha, as it becomes a timeline creation site that dips into multiple social media sources in order to build out a given timeline. Under the new name of Kronomy, this 3D timeline creation tool, currently in private beta, is making the process easier and faster for its users. I’m particularly interested in seeing if Kronomy will be taking some of its new features towards the application of outside services–perhaps geo-location people searches or chronological search results, but we’ll have to wait to see if anything of this sort develops from Kronomy’s recent updates. What you can do now, however, is take advantage of the private beta invites Kronomy has shared for 500 Mashable readers (once you’re in, however, you can invite more friends to join). Use “shareyourstory” as the invite code when signing up. Below is a Q&A session I had with Michael Hirschbrich, founder of Kronomy: Kristen Nicole of Mashable: So is kronomy replacing xakasha? Hirschbrich: Yes, Xakasha was a prototype for our initial development. Once we had funds to develop the prototype, we upgraded and redesigned the initial product to make Kronomy. With Kronomy, we updated 60% of the features including: Flickr API, supporting the top ten video sources, customized embed system, new dynamic 3D surfing, adding events is much more automated as is inviting friends – just to name a few. The biggest thing is the ability for users to embed their timeline anywhere. We also have over 1000 celebrity timelines for our users to explore and add events into their own timeline – for example you can add a movie you watched on your 16th birthday with your childhood friends into your timeline and share it with them.
Kristen Nicole: how are you hoping users will take advantage of Kronomy? Hirschbrich: 95% of our memories are lost over our lifetime, Kronomy helps people remember their events and associations with people, places, etc. Kronomy aims to be a visual time machine for anybody, place or thing, which can be embedded anywhere. For our users, Kronomy puts memories into time context - it makes it simple and fun to organize, find and share them chronologically. Kronomy provides a community memory of events from a variety of sources including social networks, photo and video sharing sites, et al. It interconnects lives, users can literally jump from their timeline into other’s timelines and discover other lives. We want to help users keep all their important memories and events in one place that is easy to share and fun to watch over their lifetime. In addition, we provide entertainment for users as they can explore celebrity timelines and in the future any significant event or person in the world's history. Kristen Nicole: any plans to make this a collaborative feature? Hirschbrich: We are still working on our upcoming features, so you will have to stay tuned for that (sorry, that's all we can say right now). |
About two months ago, Sean covered here at Mashable the news that an organization named Merlin has become the fifth biggest record label, behind giants like EMI, Warner and Sony. Given that the age of giant labels is dying, it’s odd that 12,000 indie labels (those best poised to be nimble and adaptable to the ever-changing landscape of the modern music business) would sign on to create what is essentially a model of the Old Media record label concept. From Sean’s 
The iPhone 3G will be descending on populations all across the globe this Friday, with a staggered rollout set according to time zones. Which is all good and well (mostly, anyway; see 
This one's been talked about quite a bit. It will help iPhone users connect with fellow Loopt members and let you know whether friends are across town or just down the block. Send messages and photos if you like. Maintain a journal/blog of your time out in the world, too. The service's demonstration at Apple's WWDC 2008 conference signified the potential for location-based services, whether they be social or simply informational in a geographic and directorial sense (which Loopt is, in part. It lets you find interesting places and events shared by network members, and vice versa).
If you manage a microblog, but think that providing friends with your location would help some in making sense of the "spacial" dimensions of your social network, this one's definitely a goodie. Unfortunately, a native iPhone-friendly SpotJots application won't be distributed this week. The service, developed by Ten23 Software, is scheduled to hit the shelves roughly around the first week of August.
Twitterific for iPhone, which just so happened to nab a 
SixApart, the creator of the TypePad platform, had previously launched a piece of software for the iPhone, but it was Web-based. The native option to soon debut will undoubtedly operate in smoother fashion. And it's integration with the device's camera utility is a great convenience.
There they can be edited, browsed, and shared according to your account preferences.
It was demonstrated at a gathering at Apple's home campus earlier this year, but the company has kept mum about it since. I would personally like to see something along the lines of an Apple-approved download of 
Google's VP of engineering, Vic Gondotra, was 
Sway examines the decisions we make and why we make them. All Web 2.0 companies evolve from an idea and the action taken to turn that idea into a reality. However, that’s only one of thousands of decisions the founder and their growing staff have to make. After reading this book, you’ll think twice about your decisions, and who knows, perhaps you’ll lead your company in a more positive direction.
Particularly those who consider themselves first and foremost developers of Web services. In that case, there will be ample room for 
I will admit that I can be a bit demanding. If I am going to use an application it has to work well, and I have to have a real need for it. If this is a client application for something like 
In an attempt to make FriendFeed more “interesting” we have 
For the more strictly organized approach, you can use 
Recently we brought you a list of 
First, there's the option to go super local with ads displayed. Zip code-specific is how VideoEgg describes it. Then there is the ability for marketers to hawk more than one product in a way that allows the viewer to browse through various items shown. Interesting? Perhaps. Other components now in VideoEgg's repertoire are:
Since the iPhone 3G is pretty much iPhone 1.0 with 3G and GPS, and I’m betting on 
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