Looks like tonight’s theme is social discovery. Israel-based eSnips, a media-centric social network we reviewed over a year ago, is releasing a new feature called “Social DNA” meant to help you discover people similar to yourself. The idea’s simple and already executed in one form or another by most online dating services. Users fill out quick and “fun” quizzes about a variety of topics. They also list their musical, literary, cinematic, and dietary preferences on the site. Social DNA then takes these two sources of input and compiles percentages meant to reflect how similar you are to others on different topics. You’ll find out that you and Sally are 64% alike in political beliefs but only 8% alike in musical tastes, etc. The site will also tell you who you match most closely in a particular community or group of friends. Social DNA is cute enough but seems to confuse the purpose of eSnips even more than it is already confused (is it an online storage service? a social network? a promotional tool?). Plus, the feature doesn’t add much substance; I don’t expect many people will actually get to know each other after discovering that their “social genes” match up well. But who knows; maybe eSnips’ reported four million users will really dig Social DNA. CrunchBase Information eSnips Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Social network for neighbors Fatdoor has raised $5.5M in its first round of institutional funding. The company has also brought aboard ex-Yahoo Jennifer Dulski as its CEO. The investment group was led by Norwest Venture Partners with the participation of KeyNote Ventures. Dulski comes to Fatdoor after nine years at Yahoo where she served variously as VP/GM of Local Markets and Commerce, VP/GM of Yahoo Autos, and VP of Business Unit Marketing. Fatdoor aims to connect you with your neighbors by providing a localized social network for your physical community. Although the site will be in private beta until the spring of 2008, a handful of details have been publicly available since at least June. The website will integrate with Microsoft Virtual Earth to display local business and residential listings on an interactive map. Once users claim their listings, they can add profiles and put down their interests. Users can then plan events and form local interest groups with the site. Fatdoor will also pull in information from other web services such as business reviews from Yelp, events listings, and driving directions. Users will be able to add their own business reviews but they won’t be displayed outside of the network on Yelp’s website. Fatdoor’s homepage will display something akin to the Facebook news feed with information about upcoming events and recently created groups. CrunchBase Information fatdoor Yelp Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
SixApart has launched a new version of the their Movable Type (MT) blogging platform, Movable Type Community Solution (MTCS) that takes blogging into the realms of forum hosting, with some nice 2.0 touches. Other sites have reported that the new version is something akin to a Ning competitor, but this isn’t the case. I asked Six Apart’s VP Anil Dash exactly what we are looking at MTCS is about rescuing the huge parts of the web that are still suffering under circa-1997 technologies. I call it the “Dark Web” — all these conversations that are taking place on bulletin boards, forums, and message boards, but they don’t have any of the usability or identity benefits of modern web technologies. And that’s leaving aside niceties like good URLs (for Google indexing) and tagging and rich media support. I mean, you just don’t see a forum where you can easily upload video or audio assets, for example. MTCS generates a member profile for every user in a system, providing a profile page that shows commenting, interactions etc, but Dash says that isn’t the exciting part: If I look at your profile, and the only conversations you’ve inspired are flame wars, it’s easy to know you’re not a valuable contributor. But to the contrary, if every comment or post you write gets marked as a favorite, then I can start to think about promoting you (using MT4′s built-in permissions system) to be an author or administrator, either on the forums or on other blogs in the system. Maybe you can even make static content pages. (Just imagine, instead of having to “pin a post” at the top of a forum to define policy, you can just *make a policy page*. So obvious, but such an improvement.) The cross action integration is where SixApart feels that MTCS excels: Upload a user picture for yourself, and it’s stored (and tagged) in MT4′s built-in asset management system. Vote for something as a favorite, and it shows up on the MT4 dashboard as favorite content, so other authors know it’s what the community is looking for. And best of all, administration and community participation features are separate, as they’ve always been in blogging tools — that fixes the problem forums have always had of trying to shove administration and management tools into the user-facing part of the site. MTCS supports third party widgets (SixApart is a member → Read More
I get a kick out of stuff that’s the most something-or-other allowed by law. For almost $300, though, I think the most powerful router is a little excessive. Also, it’s got "Extreme" in the name, which I find a bit presumptuous and overplayed. People who own places large enough to necessitate the use of such a device likely won’t flinch at the price, though. "Chump change!" they’ll laugh over martinis and fancy wafers. Anyway, it’s an 802.11b/g wireless router that puts out 30dBm, which is actually pretty impressive considering most high gain extender antennas that you can buy for your regular router top out at under 10dBm. You’ll enjoy a signal that’s "almost a quarter mile." No word on what this device will do to your little swimmers, though. Extreme Range WiFi Router [ThinkGeek] → Read More
Google has made a small change to AdSense that may make a big difference in cutting out errant clicks and even your AdSense revenue. They’ve redefined the clickable region for Google AdSense from the entire boxed region, to just the text link. Google Blogoscoped has a mock-up of the difference in the regions. Although Google has filters to detect outright click fraud, unintentionally clicking on an ad region may be a less insidious yet hard to detect cause of wasted ad dollars. Last year, Google and Yahoo got into hot water over allegations of click fraud and eventually agreed to an independent audit. Google also wound up paying $90 million in a settlement, a small fraction of any potential earnings from fraud, but a wake up call for them nonetheless. → Read More
CBS News writers will vote Thursday on taking strike action in a move that would cripple news production on CBS television and radio. The CBS News workers will join their drama and comedy colleagues on the picket line, along with Broadway stage hands who went on strike November 8. So far the growing number of striking workers has seen late night talk shows go off air (or into repeats), and the neon lights of Broadway dim as 27 Broadway productions have been canceled costing as much as $17 million a day. Whilst there’s nothing quite like seeing a Broadway musical in person, audiences left with nothing but closed signs and picket lines will still want to spend their recreational time somewhere, and online content presents a great void filling alternative. The CBS writers strike alone will not push many to online alternatives who aren’t already getting their news fix from the internet; there is always Fox, NBC, ABC or Cable as an alternative. However with strike action in the air there is always the chance that more writers from other networks may join the picket lines, and that would reduce television choice. The irony of course is that the original writers strike is all about sharing revenue from online content, where as the net result of their actions may actually see more people turning online for content and less people watching television. After the 1988 writers strike, network television lost 10% of its audience once the strike ended, at a time where there were far fewer alternatives to what viewers have today. (image credit: idealterna on Flickr under CC) → Read More
There’s a new sheriff in town at the venerable Wall Street Journal, and they certainly seem willing to try new things. Like the New York Times, the WSJ is now adding Digg buttons to articles. And clicks from Digg get the added benefit of bypassing the paywall. Links are supposedly being added now, although I can’t find any articles that include the digg button yet. The WSJ also has links from blog search/discovery engine Sphere on their site, which creates a pop up window with related content. Update – good screen shot here. CrunchBase Information Digg Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Wow. Watch this. Sure, kilobits and kilobytes and fractions of pennies can be confusing but this is amazing. You’d think they’d have this information available. This guy asked 56 Verizon operators the same two questions; "What is the data overage rate for the basic 10MB data plan for $29.99?" and "What is the data roaming rate in Canada on the Core Choice 450 plan?" Only one rep out of 56 was able to correctly answer both questions. A whopping 93% quoted the rates incorrectly. How Bad Can a Cell Phone Company Get?: Verizon Misquotes Rates 93% of the Time [EyelessWriter.com] via Consumerist → Read More
It didn’t make a lot of sense when we heard that Automattic, the company that created the WordPress.com blogging platform and oversees the WordPress.org open source project, turned down a $200 million buyout offer. But apparently the investors weren’t ready to cash in their chips yet, and made CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg a counter offer they couldn’t refuse: take a new round of financing, led by existing investor Polaris, and use most of that new money to cash out the founders. The size of the round is reported to be as high as $50 million. It’s unclear how much of that goes to the founders, we’re just hearing “most of it.” The company won’t confirm the deal – Schneider returned my email, saying “Can’t comment on anything at this time.” More as this develops. CrunchBase Information Automattic Matt Mullenweg Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Poor Peerflix. It can’t quite seem to figure out what business it wants to be in. The DVD trading site, which already tried to rethink its business last December, has decided that maybe an online swap meet for DVDs isn’t such a great idea after all. Now it wants to become an ad network for movie-related sites. Oh, and it also bought a blog today, TheMovieBlog, for an undisclosed amount. Peerflix will continue to operate its DVD-trading business, which pretty much runs itself on autopilot, says CEO Billy McNair. But today it is launching the Peerflix Media Network, which will be an ad network targeted at movie lovers. Peerflix ads will run across more than 40 partner sites, including Peerflix, TheMovieBlog, Pajiba.com, ComicBookMovie.com, BadMovies.org, ScreenRant.com, and AnimeMojo.com. All together, this collection of niche movie sites attracts about one million visitors a month. TheMovieBlog represents the biggest chunk of that, with visitors fluctuating between 300,000 and 650,000 per month, and Peerflix attracts about 100,000 visitors a month. The rest come from the other sites. McNair clearly sees a bigger opportunity in advertising than in e-commerce. He explains the reasoning behind his shift in strategy: We have a very loyal audience, but it is unclear to me today whether the trading side becomes part of the arsenal of the average consumer to acquire content, or whether it remains a niche play. We could extend the trading platform or extend the movie experience. We felt the smarter play was to extend the movie experience. Swapping DVDs always seemed like more hassle than it was worth to me. But Peerflix has been able to gather 300,000 registered users, with about 10 to 20 percent of those active in any given month, according to McNair. The problem is that there is not much growth there. McNair says he was able to finance the blog acquisition and the new ad network from operations, and that he has not yet burned through the $10 million in capital he’s raised so far from Battery Ventures, 3i, and BV Capital. (The last round was in October, 2005). And he does not rule out more blog acquisitions. But he may find that swapping DVDs is easier than swapping business models. CrunchBase Information Peerflix Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
I’ve never been more in agreement with Wired than I am at this very moment. "Everything here is a crap gadget with diamonds glued on it," says Rob Beschizza in his post called The Worst Diamond-Encrusted Gadgets Of All Time. I’d go a step further and make the claim that diamonds don’t belong anywhere near gadgets. Let the gadget itself do the talking. If it’s cool, all the diamonds in the world won’t give it an ounce of extra oomph. There are some real gems here, pardon the pun. The Vertu cell phone, a ridiculous looking Game Boy, an MP3 player for dogs (?), a couple of stupid-looking iPod Shuffles, and more. Great read. Click below for the full article. The Worst Diamond-Encrusted Gadgets Of All Time [Wired] → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=27754 GameTrailers.com has a good video review of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about this game. GT’s basic view is that the game is gorgeous and innovative, albeit a bit repetitive and with a less-than-stellar enemy AI. "Assassin’s Creed breaks new ground but fails at nailing some fundamentals." Assassin’s Creed review HD [GameTrailers.com] → Read More
So the rumors are correct. The picture above, Flickr confirmed via a phone call, is in fact the 2 billionth image uploaded to the site. The photo was taken by “yukesmooks” in Sydney on November 10th with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. It has the beautifully minimalist title “Picture 098.” You can apparently find various milestones by typing in the URL http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=XXXXXXX, and replacing the X’s with the photo number. Sadly, most of the big milestones are really, really boring pictures. Flickr says 3-5 million new photos are uploaded to the site daily. That means we just have to wait until…well, someone do the math…for the 3 billionth photo. I hope it’s a good one. Update: Just as a point of comparison, Facebook has 4.1 billion photos on their site. CrunchBase Information Flickr Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Bebo is taking on YouTube (and Hulu). Today, it opened up its social network to video partners who want access to its captive audience. Launch partners include CBS, MTV Networks, ESPN, the BBC, Channel Four, BSkyB—Bebo is very popular in the UK—Next New Networks, Crackle, Ustream, Last.fm and JibJab. The partners can keep all advertising dollars from the videos (and from music too). Bebo gets to keep its members on its site. (Update: In an e-mail, Bebo CEO Michael Birch clarifies how the ad relationship with the media partners works and what he is trying to accomplish: They control all advertising within the player itself, skins/pre-rolls/post-rolls/ads attached to the player in any way. There could be other advertising on the page controlled by us. What we’re trying to do here is simplify the whole relationship between media companies and distribution platforms. There’s value for Bebo and our users by having great quality, legal content on Bebo. And there is clear value to the content owner in both controlling the content and advertising, and in keeping the subsequent revenue. We’ve removed the need for protracted negotiations with third parties by opening our doors in such a way that it is a no-brainer for any media content owner, large or small. Also, in response to how Bebo positions itself versus YouTube or Hulu, he says: YouTube and Hulu are different to Bebo in that Bebo is a fully featured social network with a viral platform for distributing great content, which may indeed come from YouTube or Hulu. YouTube and Hulu have community type features but are not at the core a social network. The social network is where people are checking in daily, communicating with friends, and in the process sharing and discovering new content. For example, most new TV programs I watch are due to friend recommendations. Bebo simplifies and automates that discovery process.) Members will be able to create and share their own video and music playlists. And media companies will get their own profile pages. (Note that this announcement is separate from Bebo’s participation in Google’s OpenSocial platform). There is no doubt that media needs to go wherever the audience happens to be hanging out, and if it is not going to cost the media companies anything, why not sign up with Bebo? As for Bebo, maybe the free vids will help keep its growth from slowing down. Or → Read More
Remember PDAs? Those nifty little handheld tablets that let you track appointments and set to-do lists? Yah, we do too, and they seem like an artifact from yesterrday. With the rise of the smartphone, the PDA has become redundant, all of the features you’d want in a PDA are included in the generic smartphone, as well as instant email and Web browsing. The third quarter of this year saw less than one million PDAs sold globally. That’s a 40% decrease from the same quarter last year. And really, did anyone not see this coming? Now that people’s grandmas are getting Treos, we can expect the nail in the proverbial coffin any time. Will the PDA market totally disappear? It’s doubtful, there are vertical markets that rely on the devices but have no need of many things smartphones do, the medical field is one example. But as far as a consumer product goes, I’m afraid combo devices like smartphones and iPod Touch are the future of handheld personal organization. PDA sales down 40% [Pocket Lint] → Read More
We were pretty hard on Zecco when it launched a little more than a year ago. Their zero commission brokerage service raised a number of red flags. In particular, we were worried that they would attract only the very low end of the market. Despite our criticism, the company soldiered on. They’ve built out their trading platform to to get the heavy day traders to use them, and launched a social site called Zeccoshare that allow like-minded investors to share opinions on stocks (which in turn drives transactions). They say they’ll soon begin to harness the collective intelligence of those users to get even more data about stock to traders. There are others experimenting in this space as well. Today the company is announcing a $25 million round of financing, adding to the $10 million they previously raised. They’re also filling out their executive team quite nicely. Who knows, maybe, just this once, we were wrong when we called them a loser. We’ll just put Etrade into the deadpool instead. CrunchBase Information Zecco Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Some of the folks at AppleTVSource found some strings pertaining to calendar and contacts syncing for the Apple TV which sounds fairly far-fetched. Maybe you can add your calendar entries on the TV? The Apple TV will inform you when you’re late? Who knows. Rumor and innuendo, friends. Contacts and Calendar syncing coming to the Apple TV? [AppleTVSource] → Read More
It’s been a few months since the iPhone first graced the world stage and I’ve owned mine since September, entering the fray only after the price drop made it worth picking up. So here we are, holidays upon us, and the iPhone — actually, probably the Touch — promising to be a big seller for the 16-to-95 set. Well, friends, I’m going to make a case against the iPhone. Although I believe it’s a break-through product, it is not, in fact, all that and a bag of chips. Even if the chips were good. → Read More
I own a Wii. I like it. I wish there were better games for it, though. And I wish it did more "stuff" like the Xbox 360 does. As a matter of fact, I may very well be on the verge of purchasing an Xbox 360, albeit unknowingly. If the right deal comes along — like if I could get it for $100 from Amazon.com — I’m almost positive I’d pull the trigger. An upcoming update set to be pushed out on December 4th will allow users to purchase old Xbox games for $15 apiece. Halo will be one of the first games available, along with Fable, Crimson Skies: Road to Revenge, and Burnout 3. Add this feature to HD movie and TV show downloads, upcoming IPTV support, and all the other current features and I might just be left with no choice but to pick one up. Xbox 360 Fall Update to Bring Downloadable Xbox Games [teamxbox.com] → Read More
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Teh.Be$T.Kommenter.Evar
Comments are the greasy oil that keeps the blog machine running. Here are three great (and 100% unedited) comments recently posted by your fellow readers. ZeroHouse concept: totally self-sufficient for a cleaner environment Jeff Wow, what an absolutely honest post. I love it, he pretty much just said what most of us are thinking. Dude, I no longer care about global warming or the environment, I feel so much better! Thanks man. → Read More