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- Dell’s Social Media Experiment Aims to Capture the Digital Nomad
While the actual term “digital nomad” has been around for a little while, it usually seems to fall under the shadow of the more expansive term of telecommuting. The fact is that really they are two different ideas altogether.
The idea of telecommuting has been around for almost as long as computers have been able to talk to each over a copper wire. I remember back in the days of bulletin board services (BBS) the idea of people being able to work from home was beginning to take shape. At the time, the big drawback was that the technology hadn’t advanced to the point where it was really feasible, not to mention the fact that employers were almost wholly unified against the idea.
Then along came the internet and with it increasing access speeds and more powerful machines that could handle what was needed for telecommuting to work. At the same time though, another phenomena was occurring that made the idea of telecommuting seem old fashion even before it really took off. Laptops started becoming primary machines as they started equaling everything that could be found in a desktop computer.
Tied in with that was the arrival of Web 2.0 and the idea that with nothing less than an idea and a laptop with access to the internet you could start your own web business. You could hold meetings either in a boardroom or remotely and you could then get together with your coding teams at coffee bars anywhere in the world as long as they had Internet access.
No more were you tied down to a single location if you didn’t want to be, no more did your development or business team all have to be in the same place. The days of the digital nomads had arrived and they were proving more and more that good ideas didn’t need four walls and an expensive address in order to get off the ground. Among the first to really discover this freedom of a nomadic working life probably had to be bloggers as they sat in Starbucks posting the hottest news or posting a Qik video interview they had with some young CEO over coffee.
With the rise of these digital nomads there were plenty of blogs talking about the concept, talking about living the lifestyle or how to deal with companies who weren’t use to this new style of doing things. What there wasn’t though was a service or meeting place on the Web where these digital nomads could virtually congregate and learn from each others’ experiences. Recently though this has changed, and while some might suggest it was done strictly for marketing purposes, Dell launched the new Digital Nomads community website.
There is no denying that Dell has a vested interest in launching a site like this and trying to attract all those digital nomads roaming out there, but when you actually visit the site you see very little overt Dell product tie-ins. Yes, there is the obligatory sidebar ad promoting one of the laptops but even the video in the sidebar isn’t a pushing heavy market speak production – rather it is an examination of how the workspace has changed and what these new workers are looking for in their tools. The idea here seems to truly provide these digital nomads with helpful information about their new lifestyle and reap any indirect benefits they can from the site. As Hugh MacLeod said when he wrote about the site:
The Digital Nomads blog is what I call "indirect marketing". People aren’t supposed to read it and go, "My, what a lovely blog. I think I’ll go out and buy me a couple of brand new Dell laptops". This is more of an "Alignment" play. In other words, by "aligning" themselves more with the digital-nomad crowd, they hope it’ll help them in time to create products that are more compelling and relevant to them. If you were in the computer business, you’d want to have the same alignment. "The Porous Membrane" etc. The good news is, Alignment plays can be extremely effective. The bad news is, they take FOREVER to gather momentum.
Even sampling some of the newest posts on the site and you can see that the focus is on the people rather than the product:
The Rise of the Digital Nomad – Jay White
Being a Digital Nomad used to mean either a traveling salesperson or perhaps the occasional work-at-home employee. Today, it means all of the above, but it adds a caveat that includes capitalizing on connectivity and opportunity regardless of your location. Who can respond to multiple conversations the fastest and who can create solutions and opportunity for less.
For example, today’s internet (a term I dislike) allows anyone to create the relationships needed to produce better products or services, for less. Younger generations realize this. If you and I can assemble a team, regardless of the location of its pieces, that can design, manufacture, and distribute a better widget, we’re in business. You are no longer looking local for help, you are looking in India, China, Russia – everywhere. Why work for a corporation right away when I can build one or perhaps build a niche that supports one?
12 Essential Services for the Digital Nomad – Chanpory Rith
Gmail Webmail doesn’t get any better than Gmail. It’s free and includes mobile access, POP/IMAP functionality, junk mail filtering, and oodles of space. It’ll even work with your own domain name. Each account also gets you access to Google Docs, a Web-based suite of word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications.
Earth Class Mail But what about your snail mail? If you’re never home, Earth Class Mail can scan your postal mail so you can view them online anywhere. Addresses are available in 20 cities including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
A Mailbox from The UPS Store If missing package deliveries is the problem, then you can get a real street address from The UPS store. Unlike a PO Box, they’ll accept packages as well as snail mail. The UPS Store won’t scan your mail like Earth Class Mail, but you get a much greater choice of addresses.
Mark’em, back’em up, encrpyt’em… Do it or lose it – Philip Torrone
My laptop “sleeve” is often made from a dirty t-shirt, or if you’re hardcore… old underwear. That’s right, no thief poking around in your bag when you’re not looking is going to want to wade through what seems to be a dirty laundry collection.
Laptop bondage… I once saw someone try and steal someone’s laptop at a bar, it was in their laptop bag and when the thief tried to make off with the bag it tugged the fellow having a beer. It ended quickly, words were exchanged, large men were involved. The fellow said that he always loops the laptop bag strap around his chair or leg wherever he goes, I’ve done that ever since.
So while this might strike the more cynical bunch out there who think that a company never does anything for the good of a community the fact is that I think in this case Dell is proving them wrong. I’m not sure how this project from Dell will work out over time, but I think that if more and more digital nomads make it a go-to resource it has a good chance of succeeding.
What do you think – marketing ploy or an honest effort to provide a valuable service to a growing segment of the workforce?
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- Flickr Improves and Adds Video to Slide Shows
Flickr slide shows sure do make it easier to view all those images being shared on a given Flickr stream, and the ability to do so has even spurred a healthy-sized third market from developers that offer Flickr slide show tools as well.
The dominant photo-sharing service has steadily been improving its slide show feature in order to make its users’ media more readily experienced and shared across the Web, and today’s slide show updates continue those initiatives. Three major new features for the Flickr slide show allow you to access the slide show viewing options from nearly every page on Flickr, embed the slide show in “bite-size” form, and view the slide show in full screen.
The most notable new option, however, is the inclusion of the recently added Flickr videos as they appear in the slide shows. While the initial introduction of Flickr videos was met with some disappointment given Flickr’s seeming hesitance to move fully into the video-sharing realm, the addition of videos into native Flickr slide shows is another step towards fully integrating videos into the Flickr culture. When you come across a video in a slide show, it will immediately play, and then move on to the next item.
Flickr company profile provided by TradeVibes
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- Mozilla Selects its 7 Best Firefox 3 Extensions
We here at Mashable have shared with you a number of feature stories on how to extend your Firefox 3 experience. From must-have add-ons to social applications to gems that’ll help you communicate most effectively with friends, family, co-workers and so forth. Today there comes another set of top-tier add-ons picked from the growing goodie bag in the Firefox marketplace. This time, though, the chosen few have been selected by a group of six judges commissioned by Mozilla as part of a contest it has called Extend Firefox 3, sponsored by ActiveState, Last.fm, and VMWare.
From a pool of over 100 entries, just seven were chosen as grand prize winners in a series of three categories: Best New Add-on; Best Updated Add-on; Best Music Add-on. For both the Best New and Best Updated picks they decided on three first-place finishers each. The extensions left standing are as follows:
BEST NEW ADD-ON
Pencil - GUI prototyping and diagramming, making use of “SVG support in Firefox 3 to implement all the shape rendering and scripting.”
Tagmarks - One-click bookmark tagging.
HandyTag - Automatic bookmark tagging.
BEST UPDATED ADD-ON
Read it Later - Save interesting pages for future reading.
TagSifter - Browse bookmarks by tag.
Bookmark Previews - Adds album and thumbnail views to bookmark manager.
BEST MUSIC ADD-ON
Fire.fm - Access to Last.fm. ‘Nuff said.
Winners of the Best New category receive free travel and accommodation to a Mozilla Developer Day of their choosing, anywhere one might be held. They also net some cool gear and software, too. Winners of the Best Updated category get to stay where they are, but grab a new Macbook Pro. The Fire.fm guys, Jorge Villalobos and Jose Enrique Bolaños, get to travel to Last.fm HQ in London and attend a Last.fm Presents show.
Just so we’re thorough, the judges deemed six runners up in the category of Best New, and we would be remiss not to relay the names. Without further adieu:
Webchunks - implementation of Internet Explorer Webslices, “plus more!”
Badges on Favicons - information badges to those nifty graphics we know and love.
Devo - the band is no more, but this command launcher is very much alive and kicking.
Close ‘n Forget - close tab and forget the visit. For those wild nights in Virtual Vegas, perhaps.
Callout - notification services of the OS for webpages and Greasemonkey scripts.
Reasy - RSVP reader.
It should be said that Extend Firefox 3 is not the inaugural developer add-on celebration. Extend Firefox 2, which officially opened its doors in 2007 and finished in early 2008, was something of a spectacle as well. At that time, Minimap Sidebar, SamePlace, and Shareaholic all took home the gold.
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- 10 Tools to Get the Most Out of GTalk
For those of us who are active Google Talk (GTalk) users, sometimes chatting is not enough. Luckily, there are tools to make your GTalk experience more interesting like VOIP, translations, and more. Here are 10 third party tools and special features that will help you get the most out of the service.
Which ones are your favorite? Know any more? Tell us in your comments.
Extended Talk
Extended Talk is a free addon for GTalk that brings in enhanced features such as making your chat windows transparent, changing font colors, message and typing areas, creating text filters, using smileys, and custom images. It also provides shortcuts to insert dates, time, IP address, email, etc. in your messages. Overall, the addon is non obstructive and fits quite well with the GTalk interface, while providing a few handy extra features.
Google Talk Shell
Google Talk Shell is another GTalk addon with some extra features that you might like. Firstly, it allows you to add several avatars and make them rotate in short intervals in your GTalk application. You can auto-hide the GTalk main window so that you have a large work area, or you can configure GTalk to always be on top of the desktop. You can also run several GTalk user names simultaneously using this addon. There is even an anti-boss hotkey to hide the GTalk window quickly.
Translation bots
Translation bots are described by Google as pieces of software that act as chat contacts and provide some fun or useful functionality. Whenever you need to translate any word or sentence from one language to another, you can send that as a message to one of the appropriate Google Chat translation bots. The bot then acts as a translator and replies to the translated version of your message. Of course you need to add the translation bot as your GTalk contact beforehand.
Currently there are 50 bots available in two language pairs. The names of the bots have been made of two letter abbreviations of languages, the English to French translation bot is ‘en2fr.’ To add the bots as contacts, you simple need to add the email of the specific bot in this format: name_of_the_bot@bot.talk.google.com. For example, for English to French bot, it’s ‘en2fr@bot.talk.google.com.’
Transliteration bots
Transliteration bots are somewhat similar to translation bots, but here they convert English sentences to scripts of various Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. You can add the bots using their names ‘en2hi’.translit, ‘en2kn.translit,’ ‘en2ml.translit,’ ‘en2ta.translit,’ and ‘en2te.translit,’ ending with ‘@bot.talk.google.com’.
Chatback Badge
Chatback badge is a nice little tool from Google that you can use to chat with non-Google users. The badge can be put on your blog, website, or anywhere you can embed an html code, and it will display your online status along with a ‘Chat with me’ message in a nice chat bubble. You can create the chatback badge in different styles as well.
GTalk Sidebar
GTalk Sidebar is a convenient way of chatting with your GTalk contacts using the Firefox sidebar. Every chat window opens in a new tab in the sidebar itself. You can make the GTalk application pop out in a new window if you wish. Although GTalk Sidebar doesn’t provide any additional feature, it can be another nice alternative, just in case you don’t want to open a Gmail window on your browser and don’t have the desktop client installed. An alternative to this addon is to save the GTalk Gadget as your Firefox bookmark and set the bookmark to load in the sidebar.
GTalk Profile
GTalk Profile is an online service that you can use to find other GTalk users from across the globe. You can simply click anywhere on the world map provided at the GTalk Profile site to look for users in that area. You can also look for users using its search box.
Ping.fm
Ping.fm is not an exclusive GTalk application. What it does is update your status on as many as 21 of your social sites including Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Wordpress, Tumbler, Pownce, Blogger, Plurk, Xanga, Friendfeed, etc., and even Mashable, simultaneously. All you need to do is add Ping.fm as a contact in your GTalk application and send it to your status update as a chat message. You also need to create your account at Ping.fm and add your social profiles so that it can do the posting for you.
GTalk to VOIP
GTalk to VOIP offers a number of free and paid VOIP services that you can use with your IM tools including GTalk, Yahoo Messenger, and Live Messenger. These include incoming calls to your IM tools from any mobile, landline phones, or Web services; outgoing calls to SIP phones, Internet radio, video conferencing, offline messaging, IM interoperability, SMS service, etc. Payment can be completed through Paypal.
Inezha
Inezha allows you to use your Gtalk application as a feed reader. Simply send the RSS feed url to the Inezha bot on your GTalk and ask to be notified on all future updates. You can also access you online account at the Inezha site and add the feeds you want to subscribe to. There are also Firefox and Internet Explorer bookmarklets and widgets that you can add to your blog. Inezha also provides a social networking feature where you can add your friends and subscribe to their updates.
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- OpenSports is a Feed Reader for Sports
OpenSports is a new sports news network designed to deliver up-to-date sports news based on user preferences. What makes OpenSports different from many other sports news networks is that it’s designed to operate a bit more like a feed reader geared towards sports news. There are various sports that you can subscribe to, and OpenSports also has social networking features for users to take advantage of participation and engagement capabilities.
Making friends, rating content and commenting are some of the available features. OpenSports hopes to keep users engaged on this end with internal features like comment subscription feed options so you can manage your site activity from within your OpenSports account. OpenSports will continue this particular trend with additional features such as activity streams for all of your site activity.
Beyond news, OpenSports also offers information on athletes, their stats, team transactions, and more. This is all information that you can subscribe to, and access through RSS feeds or through the customized capabilities that OpenSports offers for user accounts, similar to more generalized sites like regator.
While I’m not an avid sports fan, I understand the sports industry’s need to pack in a lot of information into a given amount of space and anyone that’s accustomed to reading sports stats pages will be just fine with OpenSports’ layout. There’s also a sports fantasy section that will likely come in handy now that the regular football season is getting ready to start.
- Will More Companies Hate On App Store Developers?
At first, I thought only Apple would pick on the App Store developers. After removing BoxOffice, NetShare, and countless others that we probably don’t even know about, I thought for sure that Apple would single-handedly push developers away. But I guess I was wrong.
According to Ars Technica, an App Store developer called 1337pwn developed an Xbox Live Friends application that lets Xbox Live users see their online friends, what they’re playing, and browse profile information all within the confines of their iPhone. They can also send messages to their Xbox Live friends and receive Twitter and Google Maps information through the service. Not bad for $5.
But once Microsoft realized that a developer was attempting to profit off its service, it contacted 1337pwn and told them that because they were valued XCDP developers, they would be allowed to leave the App on Apple’s App Store as long as it was offered for free.
“Microsoft is halting the sale of any XBOX Live related applications in the iTunes AppStore,” the developer said on its blog. “As official XCDP developers, we’ve always been cooperative as they’ve been consistently great to us. Per a conversation with them this morning, they will let us continue distributing our application for FREE.”
But how long will that last? So far, Microsoft says it’s fine with developers using its service, but I’m not so sure the company will be fine with that for much longer.
This brings me to another point, though. Why are companies suddenly getting involved in the App Store like never before? First, AT&T quietly told Apple that NetShare was persona non grata, now Microsoft is going after developers? Granted, Microsoft and AT&T had some reasonable cause to go to Apple and the developers, but it makes me wonder if it will stop with this.
Let’s face it — developers on the App Store are rarely as powerful or financially sound as some of the world’s largest tech companies. Realizing that, major organizations can dictate the availability of applications on the App Store if they in some way pertain to their own business. After all, if a company like Microsoft doesn’t like a legal application, who can stop it from bullying developers and ensuring that they get exactly what they want?
Bullying is a common occurrence on the Web and it’s certainly not exclusively found in the App Store. But as Apple continues to take apps down and fails to protect smaller developers, more companies will bully them and in no time, we’ll be faced with an App Store suffering from stymied growth, thanks to the weary eyes of major tech companies.
It’s time these companies leave their hands off the App Store unless it’s absolutely necessary.
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- Cmypitch.com is a One Stop Shop for Entrepreneurs (The Startup Review)
Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
STARTUP DETAILS:
Company Name: Cmypitch
20-word Description: Cmypitch is an online community for entrepreneurs. Using video, it connects businesses to sources of funding, information, advice, and opportunities.
CEO’s Pitch: Using video, Cmypitch connects businesses to sources of funding, information, advice, opportunities and services.
It has three main groups of users: business owners; investors; and business service providers. Through video, businesses can present their ideas and companies with real impact. Investors can get an instant feel for the people behind an idea or company. Service providers can differentiate their services to a targeted group.
The community focuses on different stages of the business life cycle. Within each, business people can network, build contacts, share ideas and interact with like-minded individuals.
Mashable’s Take: Based in London and headed by ex-Credit Suisse VP Emmett Kilduff, Cmypitch can be used, as the company suggests in its introductions above, for business development and unending search for growth opportunities. Things like funding, advice, and general resource information are all tools in the tool chest, so to speak. But the site, quite a young venture in and of itself, seems to offer some nice added value in the way of featured content. How so? Something called Entrepreneur TV.
If you’re considering starting up an operation all your own, opening a franchise, wish to sell a brand/place already in existence, or simply shuffle through a digital rolodex of companies listed in the Cmypitch business directory, this website is really a quality place to go for guidance. Again, it’s fairly new, so you won’t find reams and reams of data. But for starters it carries considerable weight. Well-tailored from the get-go, I think.
Alternatively, if you just happen to follow the business world closely, reading the Wall Street Journal and/or Financial Times every day, keeping your cable or satellite box tuned to CNBC, the segment of Cmypitch labeled Entrepreneur TV alone is actually very entertaining. There aren’t too many profiles of people and the businesses they run. There are about 16 in all of varying subject and length. But if you enjoy those featured so far on the page, and new items emerge with regularity, I can foresee them driving ample traffic to the site relatively quickly. They are that well done.
As with other sites recently launched with an exclusively business-driven focus, Cmypitch isn’t quite competitive with LinkedIn, the darling of the social business world. Instead it sits off to one side as a kind of independent annex. Somewhere to go to get even further involved in entrepreneurial knowledge and conversation. And I think it’s fair to say that this one will soon be garnering a good bit of attention from all parts of the corporate world.
NOTE: Commenter Rolv Heggenhougen makes an crucial point of mentioning the fact that pitches can only be uploaded by users based in the UK.
Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials
cmypitch company profile provided by TradeVibes
- IAC Pulls All the Right Strings in Spin-off
IAC, the holding company of major online properties like Ask.com, Match.com, and Ticketmaster, announced today that it has completed the much-anticipated spin-off of HSN, Inc., Interval Leisure Group, Inc., Ticketmaster and Tree.com to IAC shareholders and retained the litany of more profitable companies. According to IAC, the move will be best for all parties involved and let the newly-formed companies blaze their own, independent, paths.
The very fact that IAC was required to even engage in a spin-off underlies the issues many companies are facing after acquiring popular online properties and holding them in the hope that they will grow in popularity and yield a positive ROI. And although the companies IAC was forced to spin-off were seemingly fine acquisitions, when one consults the company’s latest quarterly filing, it becomes blatantly clear that this move was best.
According to IAC’s second quarter financial statements, the company incurred a staggering $421 million loss, representing a $500 million swing since last year when it made a $94 million profit. But after the spin-off, the new company is doing much better and according to its financial statements, would have grown by 49 percent and incurred a loss of just $18 million. More importantly, Tree.com and HSN, the two biggest culprits in the decline in IAC’s value, are left to smolder on their own without impacting the company’s bottom line.
But along with cutting its losses, IAC is becoming a more agile company instead of a media conglomerate that’s trying desperately to stay relevant in a constantly changing Web environment. Now, IAC has a slew of great properties, headlined by Ask, Bloglines, Collegehumor.com, and Match.com, that more adequately adapt to the changing Web landscape and solve a specific need.
In a Web environment where CPM is down and more sites than ever are battling for your time, services like Tree.com and the entire HSN network are becoming far less necessary. And in the process, these sites are losing money at an astounding rate and pulling all of IAC down with them.
The new IAC is much stronger without the companies it spun-off. And although Ticketmaster was still profitable, that too has been losing ground over the past few years and could easily be supplanted by a service that streamlines ticket purchases in a new way.
Kudos to IAC. For the first time in the past year, it looks like it is on to something with its new strategy.
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- The First Mashable Monthly SF Starts Tonight
Tonight is the first ever Mashable Monthly SF. Join Mashable, including our fearless leader, Pete Cashmore, and San Francisco’s tech elite for an evening of meeting, mingling and conversing about the Web’s hottest new services while enjoying light appetizers and drink tickets. As an added bonus, we’re hosting a Press & Blogger lounge where you can tell the world about what you’re working on (check the link for how to get early access tonight).
Tickets are $10, but ticket sales close at 3:00 pm PT. Tickets will be available at the door for $15 cash only. So act fast and have fun tonight!
When: August 21st, Thursday, 7:00 - 10:00 PM
Where: ROE Restaurant 651 Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94105
What Else?: Light appetizers, drink tickets and blogger/press lounge
RSVP?: Tickets will be released through Eventbrite, 21+ Only
Socialize: Facebook, Meetup , Upcoming, Qik
Press/Blogger Passes: Please inquire through events [at] mashable |dot| com for Press/Blogger information and passes.
Mashable Monthly Sponsors:
‘Momentum Design Lab is a premier full-service user experience design firm that specializes in effective user interface design for a wide range of platforms: enterprise applications, Saas, social networks and online communities.’
‘Kazowie creates a unique social shopping experience. Users can easily create personalized gift registries, wishlists, buyer’s guides, and polls and share them with friends, family and like-minded people.’
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- 12seconds API Launches with Blippr and TweetDeck as Partners
The recently launched video status service 12seconds hasn’t been around for more than a few weeks, but already it’s hoping to become a standard in the crowding playing field of video-integrated commentary services. To do so, 12seconds is seeking a seamless integration offering with its own product, in hopes that other third party services will find this useful.
The result is the alpha release of the 12seconds API, which lets you use the 12seconds service as your own video status tool within your site or network. This is, of course, an attempt to achieve growth through the organic marketing capabilities of word-of-mouth and indirect promotion through developer and third-party communities, which is often a necessary move for startups that are in the process of carving out their own niche in their related space. With competitors like Seesmic offering integration options such as blogging platform plug-ins, it’s clear that services like 12seconds need to find ways in which to appeal to an even larger user base and make its tools as accessible as possible.
So far, launch partners include Blippr, TweetDeck and Phreadz, all of which have integrated 12seconds into their services in different manners. While Blippr allows users to create a 12second video review to accompany or replace a 160 character text review, TweetDeck’s Adobe AIR client tracks 12seconds channels and plays videos on your desktop. Phreadz, on the other hand, is using 12seconds in a video commenting capacity for a conversational option members can use for feedback on user-generated content. If you use the 12seconds API, be sure to let us know what you think.
12seconds company profile provided by TradeVibes
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- Zoho Share is Another YouTube For Documents
Document sharing is actually quite a crowded space, with several serious competitors; Scribd and Docstoc come to mind, but I’m sure there are many others. However, Zoho has been so thorough with their online office suite that it’s only logical they created a document sharing service of their own.
Their vision of how document sharing should look is called Zoho Share, and unlike most competitors, who still feel they need to explain what their service is about, they really take the Youtube route, with the homepage immediately hitting you with recent and featured documents, as well as most prolific and recent users of the service.
Surprisingly, the official FAQ doesn’t work, but the service is so easy to use I’m sure everyone will get around without problems. It supports all Zoho’s formats, PDF files, Microsoft Word documents, and other popular formats, sans the much hated new Office formats (.docx and others). Users can grade, flag and comment all shared documents. Whatever you share, you can embed in a viewer which works quite well, although a zoom function would be nice (or necessary, in case of certain formats like PDFs).
All in all, Zoho Share is a decent effort, but Scribd’s iPaper is much better when it comes to features, and their viewer is much more advanced. Although I’m used to Zoho releasing products which are well ahead of the curve when it comes to features, this time they’ve chosen a barebone approach which probably won’t be good enough for some users.
Zoho company profile provided by TradeVibes
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- Photobucket Lets Users Scrapbook with Scrapblog Integration
You can already do a lot with Photobucket–host your photos, create albums, slide shows and even share videos. Photobucket has managed to integrate with a number of third party services, creating multimedia to be easily shared on your Facebook profile, in a variety of ways. While much of Photobucket’s initial popularity seemed to fluctuate with a love-hate relationship with MySpace, in the end MySpace made the move to acquire Photobucket, making the photo-hosting and sharing service even more deeply integrated with a widely-used social network.
Now, Photobucket has teamed up with online scrapbooking tool Scrapblog to provide its users another way in which to chronicle and share their multimedia content. This is offered through a Scrapblog application which is now available through Photobucket, providing scrapbook templates that can be created from scratch or take advantage of one of Scrapblog’s many themes celebrating vacations, sports, weddings, and holidays.
There are also branded template options that are modeled after popular television programs such as Disney’s “High School Musical 3.” Seeing as Scrapblog is partnering with more and more brands such as Carnival for highly specific scrapbook themes, the new availability of its application on a service like Photobucket could easily be spread even further across the Web.
Seeing as Photobucket already had a great deal of custom options, including themes for various events and holidays, one way in which to further extend the options available to users is more comprehensive ways in which to turn media into a story-telling device. More applications are emerging with portable methods in which to share media, some, like the mobile app Moblyng, work directly with content already existing on MySpace, and others, like Heekya, present themselves specifically for such integrated story-telling tools.
---Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Scrapblog and March of Dimes Go on TourScrapblog Raises Capital from Steamboat VenturesScrapblog Ain’t Too ScrappyScrapblog Powering Carnival Cruise ScrapbooksGet an Exclusive Invitation to the Photobucket Developer Party on April 23rdPhotobucket Launches API, Picnik Taps InPhotobucket Gains on comScore’s Top 25 List
- Startonomics for Success: It’s Coming and It’s Good
Startonomics is a one-day workshop (October 2nd) designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics for internet startups, and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and success.
The program is based on Dave McClure’s Startup Metrics for Pirates presentation (available on the Startonomics website); and will feature educational and candid presentations by veteran entrepreneurs and experts including: Lance Tokuda (Rock You), Ted Rheingold (Dogster), Dan Olsen (YourVersion), Lane Becker & Thor Muller (Get Satisfaction), Andrew Chen (Futuristic Play) and more.
The day will cover:
* Product Design & Development
* User Engagement & Retention
* Revenue & Monetization Strategies
* Online Marketing & Customer Acquisition
* Viral Marketing & Community Evangelism
* Startup Scalability
Join DealMaker Media and Dave McClure for this event not to be missed in the Bay Area (8am – 6pm in the Mission Bay Center, San Francisco, CA).
Special LIMITED Mashable Discount:
Startonomics is offering Mashable 20 VIP tickets.
The first 20 readers to register for the event using the promo code MASH08 will receive a $100 discount of the regular ticket price.
- Microsoft’s Photosynth is Out of Beta
Microsoft’s Live Labs project Photosynth, an application (and a browser plugin) that lets you stitch standard photos into a 3D panorama style virtual experience, has been around for a while, gaining major attention when it made Scoble cry. We’ve written about it in the past several times, and yes: it really is a nifty app and one of those rare cool things to come out of Microsoft.
Tonight, Photosynth went public. If you’re a proud Windows XP or Vista user, you’re in for a treat; if not, you’ll have to wait a while longer. It consists of a desktop application for creating your own synths and a browser plugin for viewing them online. You can upload your own creations or see those of other users, however have in mind that all synths are public. Privacy, once again, was not a top priority for Microsoft. Also, have in mind that creating a complex synth can take a lot of time; so you might want to start with only a couple of photos just to get the feel of it. Finally, one other drawback comes to mind: you can’t create group synths, which sounds like a logical thing to do, if several people took photos of the same location; I’m guessing that this functionality will be added in the future.
The shortest way to sum up Photosynth, though, is this: if you haven’t tried it, you should. No description can do it justice. Its usefulness might be questionable, but well created synths look truly astonishing. Once you see it, next time you have a camera on you you’ll probably be taking photos with 3D positioning in mind; a synth from your last summer vacation will make your friends who’ve only taken “regular” photos drool with envy.
---Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Microsoft Photosynth To Appear On CSI:New YorkMicrosoft Virtual Earth Team Takes Control of 3D Photosynth EngineRumor: Microsoft Wants To Buy Ustream.TVMicrosoft Loses Court Appeal. Must Pay $690M for Market Dominance.Steve Ballmer Attacks Google’s Gmail AdsMicrosoft and Digg Sign Ad Deal, Acquisition MentionedDeveloping: Microsoft Reconsidering Yahoo Offer
- Web 2.0 Marketplace Listings for August 21st, 2008
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
Thousands New Incoming Friend Req W/ Friendleak
Friendleak was originally established to help those on Myspace to gain a bigger impact by making it …
Epsilon Concepts - LA Digital Agency
We provide the creative, technical and strategic horsepower to architect and execute comprehensive w…
PR and Community Relations Consultant (Freelance)
Our company, Peerflux, is a visionary web startup company aimed at providing consumers and companies…
Recently Added
Affordable iPhone, Facebook, and Myspace app dev.
WE MAKE OUTSOURCING EASYnnWe are an American company; American run with an American point of contact…
Software Engineer/Web Developer
Build social networking website requiring an advanced knowledge of social network platform developme…
MySpaceSurveyFun.com was established in early 2006 and has since become one of the most highly traff…
Who We ArenntXt_blaster (tXtblaster.com) is a rapidly expanding social SMS tool that is reshaping th…
Way to Blue, a digital entertainment PR agency, are recruiting for a New Med…
Our goal is a “Meetup Everywhere about Most Everything”, and we’re on our way. We help people use …
Interactyx are looking for short-term contractor(s) to provide the following services:Audio/Video …
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- Tiger Woods’ Jesus Walk Not a Glitch
It’s fun when you see major companies really begin to understand the nature and cultural ins ands outs of your particular subculture. Despite the fact that YouTube has grown over the last couple years and is a little large to be called a subculture, the majority of corporations out there wouldn’t know what to do or where to begin if they saw something with the potential to turn into negative publicity surface on YouTube.
We’re starting to see more companies that do, though, and Electronic Arts is one we can add to the list. A user took some video screen capture of a glitch in the Tiger Woods golf title from EA showing how the ball could be played by walking over a water hazard and swinging as if the pond were dry land.
The savvy folks at EA noticed the video, then produced and posted the following as a video response.
Tracking Twitter and running Google Alerts for negative press from the blogosphere and the general populace of the social media set is one thing, but if you want to live the Chinese cliche of turning danger into opportunity, this is the way to do it. EA has successfully navigated what could become a negative demerit amongst the hardcore fans of the game franchise into a widely talked about marketing move.
It’s all about caring what your customers think and being smart about how you respond. All of us, myself included, can learn something here.
---Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Tiger Sinks the Putt; Twitter Goes Wild!Boxxet Launches - Will You Contribute for Free?NBC’s Online Olympic Channel: Will Costs Outweigh Rewards?Fliptrack Partners with APM MusicWe Need a Recount: Computation Bug Found in Microsoft ExcelMashable Rocks SXSW: Schwag Bag UpdateKinset Launches 3D Web-Based Stores
- 15+ Ways to Make Your Linux Box Hip to Web 2.0
The market of applications managing various Internet-related tasks is divided generally into three parts: Windows-based, Mac OS X-compatible, and Linux-friendly. Some function across all platforms, or perhaps the most mainstream and consumer-centric of the two. But it is unquestionably the case that the Linux world holds the least currency where desktop-to-Web and Web-to-desktop communication is concerned.
Well, if you’re a Linux user, or perhaps just curious to know what’s now possible on Linux installations in order to better decide whether to “take the leap,” we’re going to do Tux a solid today and see what’s up in the land of “Net apps” to save you from having to search the open source galaxy yourself.
Now, you’re probably aware of this. It is likely the most popular download for Linux. But what the hey, it’s good to hear once in a while. Mozilla’s well-renowned Firefox 3 browser, an open source fan-fave, is ready for Linux users to download. In every localized language version of the newest build, too. According to the official website, that leaves Firefox for Linux one better than the Mac OS X option. Do you speak Gujarati? Well, then you’ve got just two options: Windows and Linux. Enjoy.
Also, if you’d like to go full-on with your allegiance to Mozilla, its email client, Thunderbird, now in its second major iteration, is Linux-enabled as well. As with Firefox, you’re given complete language support. Gujarati, however, is only listed as available for version Thunderbird version 1.5. Sorry, folks. Can’t have everything, evidently.
Another email option for the Linux world comes in the form of Zimbra Desktop, a Yahoo-property, circa 2007. And if we may say so ourselves, it’s quite good. Plus, it’s free. And it’s open source. And it can be matched with Zimbra’s Collaboration Suite of applications. That calls for a booyah.
There are some relatively small trinkets for Linux users that will have greater or less relevance to your day-to-day interests. One that will pique the eyebrows of music fans: the Amazon MP3 Downloader. It is available for Ubuntu 7.10, as well as Debian 4, Fedora 8, and OpenSUSE 10.3. Visit the main page for specific installation instructions. I’m no scientist, but I venture to guess that DRM-free downloads sound better on open-source software. What do you think?
Want a piece of musical software a bit more robust and full-featured? Take a trip down Songbird lane. The first few releases of this software weren’t stellar, but having just tried it once more this week, it’s safe to say the thing has evolved quite a bit since its days as a youngling. Worth a peek!
Let’s not forget that there are plugins and lightweight software systems to make your Web browsing and PC-based interaction with the cloud more enjoyable, too. Adobe Flash version 9.0 is out as a 3MB-large .tar.gz download. Something to consider adding to your Firefox and/or SeaMonkey browser(s), for sure.
And though Microsoft doesn’t officially support Linux with its Silverlight development, you might be interested to know of an independent project from Mono called Moonlight. Packages are dubbed experimental, with the latest update said to have been issued on August 7, 2008. If you consider yourself the adventurous type, why not give it a try.
Adobe also has stored in its Labs division a Linux version of its AIR platform. But it is unfortunately only an “alpha-quality” release at this point. In short, things that function on the latest AIR builds for Windows and Mac may not perform on the Linux equivalent.
The final plugin to consider: Gears. Google Gears was its original moniker. Evidently the company thinks its the coolest kid in school and figures that Gears alone will suffice. Like “iPod.” Leaving aside the back story about the move, Gears is certainly useful, especially now that more of the Google Apps portfolio plays well with it. Google Reader, Google Docs, and so forth. Not Gmail, yet, but soon enough, yes? We hope. Oh, and Zoho tips its hat to Gears, too.
Want to chat some? A number of chat applications can be enjoyed on Linux. We won’t go through the whole lot of ‘em. Some are more popular than others, naturally. And there’s nothing quite like hearing that an uber-familiar name like Skype is strutting its stuff in the open-source world - albeit in less-than-cutting-edge form. The Skype development team tend to follow the Windows-then-Mac-then-Linux formula when releasing updates. The basic’s are there in Skype 2.0 for Linux, though. VoIP and IM and video. Sound good? Good. Download away, then.
There is also Pidgin, for enthusiasts of a multi-protocol lifestyle. Formerly known as Gaim, Pidgin is said to work with AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo, and Zephyr. That good enough for you? Never enough, right? So it goes, fellow Mashables, so it goes.
Back in media land, an item by the name of Miro moves steadily along, aggregating video per users’ convenience. Like watching podcasts, do you? Miro makes it happen all in one place. And its latest release is available for Linux. Ubuntu Linux, to be specific. The Miro download page lists ‘Other Systems’ and ‘Source Code’ as well.
How about sharing your music? That has clearly turned out to be the next wave of music consumption. Well, hear this. Simplify Media, an outfit responsible for allowing friends to stream libraries over the Web in relatively private seclusion, is offered for PC, Mac, and Linux users alike. And if you happen to count yourself among the few in the Linux class who keep an iPhone or iPod touch in hand, a stroll through Apple’s App Store will show a free Simplify Media download.
We first covered a Java-based website analytics application called Woopra back in March and again in early June, and it may just be your cup of tea. That is if you’re one to watch numbers with a smile on your face. You get graphs, timelines, real-time chat with fellow stat geeks, and all of it in a pretty candy coating. Take it for a spin if nothing else. The least it’ll do is offer you some visual excitement. If you’re into that sort of thing, anyway.
Speaking of Java, something by the name of Wuala recently passed our news desk, and as with many other developments built on Sun’s ubiquitous coding platform, it works with Linux. Share files of all sizes with your buddies or the broader world. Use up 1 GB of cloud space free of charge, or spring for extra space on a per-annum payment plan.
Of course, file-sharing is no new concept. The peer-to-peer world has a storied history for sure. And if you want to take a bit more ordinary approach to the give and take of the BitTorrent realm whilst keeping an honest eye toward legal bounds - and maybe even some paid downloads - two names come to mind most quickly: BitTorrent.com and Vuze. The latter is the most recent evolutionary step to come from development of a program once called Azureus. It’s a treat. BitTorrent.com, meanwhile, is where you will find both a client that is Linux-compatible and a selection of media for download from the likes of FOX, Lionsgate, Paramount, Comedy Central, WB, ThinkFilm, and MTV. That’s a treat, too.
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- timeXchange Taps into Your Social Graph to Manage Your Relationships
Would you use a time-tracking application to help you determine and manage your “real” social network? timeXchange hopes so, with some of its latest updates. Instead of becoming stagnant as a tool that merely tracks time for employees, contractors or the self-employed, timeXchange is going the social route, hoping to use its service as a way to provide more immediate value as a relationship-management tool that focuses on working relationships.
If you invite a collaborator to your project on timeXchange, you’ll now also have that person as a contact in relation to that overlapping project, making this service a multifaceted management tool for both projects and relationships. As we use Web-based services to handle more and more of our business and personal relationships’ transactions, we find that there are many groups that overlap with each other within our own social graph. And managing the overlap can be problematic–it’s an ongoing issue that has spurred the development of privacy settings for various types of networks, and helped niche networks remain so for all intents and purposes.
So when we look at the people we actually keep in contact with in person, via phone conversations or Web-based applications, we can begin to factor this into our “actual” social networks. Skydeck made this abundantly clear with the release of its phone call tracking service, which organizes your contacts based on your real level of interaction with each individual.
As Skydeck moves to integrate further with some of the other existing social networks out there through things like its developer tools and plug-in options, timeXchange will hopefully move in this direction as well, enabling users to continue their networking capabilities outside of timeXchange and carrying them over into other networks like Facebook. Perhaps timeXchange will even recommend who they should befriend on third party sites and integrate some of the scheduling and time-tracking capabilities. There’s a new iPhone app that timeXchange launched earlier this week, so additional integration on this end would be helpful as well (get it here).
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- Yahoo Brings Search to the iPhone
In response to Google’s popular app for the iPhone, Yahoo announced today that it has launched its own online iPhone search that not only lets you search the Web, but includes Search Assist and SearchMonkey to add even more functionality to a well-designed solution.
Yahoo’s Search for the iPhone aims at reducing the amount of time it takes to search the Web, while allowing you to enjoy using some of the Yahoo applications you may already be using on the desktop.
The offering includes support for Search Assist, which completes your queries before you’ve finished typing them and even works with the company’s SearchMonkey offering, which will bring all your modules from the desktop and port them to your iPhone as long as you’re logged into Yahoo’s site. Other popular pages like, movie showtimes, weather, local results, and Flickr are also included as shortcuts.
Yahoo was quick to tout its latest iPhone solution as the latest and greatest the company has to offer and after using it for a while now, I can say that it works as advertised. Granted, the search results aren’t necessarily as relevant as Google’s, but if you’re a fan of SearchMonkey and you use Yahoo search regularly, you’ll be delightfully surprised by how well it mimics the desktop Yahoo experience.
That said, it’s an online search solution, which may turn some off that are looking for a desktop app that’s similar to Google’s iPhone application. But if that doesn’t bother you and you’re willing to try out Yahoo’s latest iPhone solution, its Yahoo Search offering is a fine place to start.
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- How a Business Could Use Friendfeed For Collaboration
I was squinting at Friendfeed today, and I realized that it could really work nicely as a business collaboration tool in a few different ways. Between all the various aggregation points, and the “rooms” function, I think the platform has everyone one would need to cook up a collaboration environment. Here’s what I mean.
Information Inputs
You could configure the following inputs of data to Friendfeed for your team’s account:
* RSS feeds for blogs and other items that are RSS enabled, like status messages and cooked search.
* Flickr photo group input to capture event and staff photos.
* Delicious bookmarks to capture research.
* Twitter/Jaiku/Identi.ca/whatever to capture team status messages.
* SlideShare input to capture pertinent presentations.
* Upcoming.org to map out potential useful company events.
* YouTube to gather up pertinent video.
Add to this a “room” for your group to see all this information in one place, and you’ve built quite an interesting data aggregator.
What Comes Next
For collaboration, Friendfeed has a built in discussion mechanism that’s outside of all those other streams. It has mobile input and other 3rd party services, so you can reach the platform even while out in the field, allowing for more than one use. It allows for textured sharing and hiding, commenting, and instant discussions.
Have information that you need to keep private? Make a group, and keep it invite-only. Put that kind of information in the group area and not the public timeline.
This is not only viable, it’s really actionable. There are several implementations I can imagine:
* News desk.
* Writing topic gathering station.
* Community center.
* Online project team.
* Citizen Journalism group.
* Virtual street team.
Does it make sense to you? Can you see other applications? It just strikes me that a team use could be very powerful. Who knows? Maybe some folks are already doing this. Point them out in the comments.
Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [chrisbrogan.com], a social media blog.
FriendFeed company profile provided by TradeVibes
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- Will “TV Widgets” Change the Way You Watch TV?
Intel and Yahoo on Wednesday announced a partnership that not only makes it one of the most interesting announcements of the day, but also could have a major impact on the way you enjoy television.
Dubbed Widget Channel, the new brainchild of Intel and Yahoo is a “TV application framework” that’s specifically designed to interface with TV and consumer devices that employ Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel will give consumers the ability to use rich Internet applications designed for TV while watching different shows.
The Widget Channel is powered by Yahoo’s Widget Engine and will provide TV viewers with a set of TV widgets that aim at improving the way you watch TV and interact with the shows you’re watching at any given time.
Developers who want to exploit the Widget Channel will be able to design widgets with Javascript, XML, HTML, and Flash, and according to Yahoo, will range from video streams to stock tickers, to updated news, all found directly on the TV.
Yahoo said it has already inked quite a few companies and more should be coming on-board as the new service launches. So far, the company said that a slew of services are being developed and deployed by Blockbuster, CBS Interactive, CinemaNow, Cinequest, Disney-ABC Television Group, eBay, GE, Group M, Joost, MTV, Samsung, Schematic, Showtime, Toshiba, and Twitter.
And although this idea sounds absolutely delectable, I’ll be interested to see how it all pans out. Will it make watching TV much harder due to annoying pop-ups and ugly widgets? Or will it extend the capability of TV in ways we never thought possible and totally revolutionize the business?
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- 30+ Plugins to Make Your WordPress Blog More Social
WordPress blogs are getting increasingly social, giving readers the ability to bookmark your site to a number of services, get to know you better in more ways than just your comments section (and vice versa), and view your activity on a variety of social sites. We’ve compiled a list of more than 30 plugins that will let you make your WordPress blog more social.
This collection of plugins just begins to scratch the surface of what’s available out there. As with all WordPress plugin lists, we highly suggest you do not install all of these because not only would it be redundant, it would also slow down the response times of your site.
Dedicated Site Plugins
Digg Digg - Will let you quickly add the Digg button to your posts with commands for left or right float, before and after content and a few other tweaks.
Digg This - This particular Digg plugin only adds the Digg button if it detects that your post has been submitted to the popular site, saving you the embarrassment of a lot of Digg badges showing “0″.
DiggZ-Et - Allows you to automatically insert Digg buttons into the pages and posts of your choice. Also lets you choose where the button will show up in the post, amongst other options.
Dugg Widget - Will place a widget in your sidebar that displays the last 10 posts from your blog that have made it on Digg.
FriendFeed Activity Widget - Share your FriendFeed activity with readers on your blog.
FriendFeed Comments WordPress Plugin - This plugin is used by Mashable and displays the number of times an articles has been marked as “Favorite” and will display the actual comments from the FriendFeed discussion on your site.
Stumble Reviews - Allows you to add the reviews that appear on StumbleUpon for a given page to be displayed on that page.
Twitter Updater - Send a Tweet to your Twitter account anytime you publish a new post to your blog, will automatically shrink it down via TinyURL.
WordPress Twitter Widget - Displays your Twitter feed in your sidebar and can turn “@username” and other info into links, while also displaying user avatars.
WP-Profilactic - Allows you to build a page around your Profilactic lifestreaming account so your blog readers can follow all of your links to nearly 200 possible social accounts.
Multi-site Plugins
Bookmark Me - Supports bookmarking to many international sites including German, Dutch, Lithuanian and more.
Bookmarkify - Adds support for over 50 social networking and bookmarking sites via squared off icons at the bottom of your posts.
I Love Social Bookmarking - Could there be a more appropriately named plugin for social bookmarking? As opposed to most of the other multi-submission plugins, this one puts the services into a drop down menu to save on load time.
iBegin Share - While it adds the usual bookmarking icons and ability to email a story, it also adds the ability to save the page as a PDF or Word DOC file.
obsocialbookmarker - Allows you to add the submission links for multiple social sites such as Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and more.
pingPressFM - Will communicate with ping.fm to update the social networks that it works with.
ShareThis - Easily adds the well-known green ShareThis icon to your blog, allowing people to quickly submit your articles to the most popular social sites or just email them to their friends.
Sociable - This plugin allows you to add a dizzying number of social submission icons to the bottom of your blog posts. If you activated all of them, your blog posts would certainly be colorful!
Social Bookmarking RELOADED - Adds numerous social bookmarking icons to your posts and/or pages, available in English or Italian.
Social Bookmarks - Gives you 50 social bookmarking submission icons to choose from including all of the major bookmarking services and several smaller ones.
Social Dropdown - Allows you to add a dropdown menu for numerous social bookmarking and voting sites such as Digg, Facebook, Google Bookmarks and more.
SociBook - Adds over 60 social bookmarking sites to your site by simply clicking on the name of each you want.
SocioFluid - While it does what many other plugins do by adding social bookmarking icons to the bottom of your posts, it keeps them small until the user passes their mouse over the icon and then enlarges. Is definitely one of the more visually interesting solutions out there.
WP PunchCard - Puts 40 social bookmarking sites into as small an area as possible to conserve space in your posts. Supports the usual major sites and others such as Yahoo My Web, Squidoo and more.
Social Networking Plugins
ComplexLife - Allows you to set up a page on your WordPress blog to track a large number of social services. Will also will track comments left on other blogs and forums.
Follow Me - Adds a sidebar hub for your social networking profiles such as Digg, Twitter, YouTube, Mixx and more.
LifeStream - Brings your activities on social networks such as Facebook, Digg, Twitter on to your blog and keeps a complete history as opposed to just a few weeks.
Meet Your Commenters - Takes the information your commenters leave and shows you their social networking profiles in your dashboard so you can add them and get to know them more.
Retaggr - Make a virtual business card for yourself that includes links to your most important social network profiles and include more information about yourself.
SezWho - Creates a social network out of your comments section by giving users a profile that follows them anywhere, also adds the ability to rate entries.
SocialBoaster - Turns your Digg, Twitter and Delicious activities into a blog post that will be shared on your blog.
Social Homes - Adds favicons to your sidebar for your various social networks so that your readers can easily find you on those social networks.
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- SocialMedian is Raising $500,000 … In 140 Characters or Less
We’ve seen Twitter used for a lot of different purposes, ranging from marriage proposals to play-by-play’s of child births. Today, we have what appears to be another first: a Web startup soliciting serious investment using the microblogging tool. Jason Goldberg, CEO of the recently launched social news site Socialmedian , tweeted that his company was “raising some more angel investment now. $25-100k/investor, up to $500k.”
While surely it’s not the first time someone has asked for money via Twitter (see: Twitter spam), Socialmedian is not your typical scenario: it’s a real company that has already raised money from some high profile investors including The Washington Post and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
I asked Goldberg why the appeal on Twitter (especially given his apparent ability to raise money through more traditional means) and he said “Several of our users have asked in the past if there was a way they could invest. So, decided to let my followers know on twitter that there might be an opportunity to invest.”
And, apparently there is some interest. On Friendfeed, where there is a lively discussion emerging about the Tweet, Goldberg claims to have found 3 legitimate investors within 30 minutes of posting the message.
Of course, the same rules would apply to any new investors found via Twitter. Goldberg told me via email: “we care if the investor is an accredited investor or not. We have strict requirements for investment. All of our current investors and all investors in this round would be required to be qualified investors … All potential investors would have to pass the standard suitability test for such an early-stage investment.”
Regardless of whether it works (or is even legal … TechCrunch says it “disregards 60 years of securities regulations”), it’s an interesting experiment in transparency and potentially lets early Socialmedian enthusiasts (with a bankroll) get a piece of the pie should the site be a big success.
socialmedian company profile provided by TradeVibes
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- Disney Launches Family.com as Content-Rich Parent Network
While Disney devotes most of its resources to entertainment for the youth of the world to consume and grow zealous over, the people dishing dollars for the company’s attractions - from theme parks to movies to books to toys and, more recently, online destinations - are naturally the adults of the world. So, after having constructed a thoroughly glitzy network on the Web called DxD (short for Disney Xtreme Digital), it has deemed it appropriate to launch another space, Disney Family, designed for use by “moms and dads to share the pride of being a parent, and have a lot of fun while (they’re) at it!”
The differences between Disney Family and Xtreme Digital are stark. While XD has no pretensions of being reserved in terms of the sheer volume of stuff presented for users’ eyes and ears, Disney Family is more basic. Its layout and color wheel are far more gentle on the senses. It is clearly meant for generations of people responsible for the those who spend their hours of playtime i
