Today's Most popular News

Source:CenterNetworks -

We’ve written about Meebo a bunch of times before including an interview with CEO Seth Sternberg. When Meebo launched their platform, I joked. Today, it’s me who has egg on the face. Mike and Kristen have the news about the first use of the platform — this time it’s games; casual games in fact. I’ve learned in a former life that casual games are one of the best (if not the best) ways to engage customers. For Meebo it increases the engagement time which allows for more marketing time. RadiusIM spoke last night about the engagement time and how high it is for IM services, gaming just raises it one more notch.

Check out this list of available games: AddictingGames’ Fratboy Unicycle Relay, Animal Puzzle, Artillery, Attack, Backgammon, Battle Pool, Blackjack, Checkers, Chess, Connect4, Go, Kongregate Racing, Match4, Music Man, Picture This!, Pirate War, Platform Racing, Reversi, Sheep Me, Sploder, Sudoku Wars, Tactics 100, Texas Hold ‘em, and World Travel Puzzle.

This comes on the heels of the Meebo announcement as the selected chat partner for Joost.

Perhaps we could create a holiday web tech blogger gaming battle royal with proceeds to charity. While I might not be on top of the TechMeme leaderboard, no one can take down my combo button action!

Source:CenterNetworks -

Here are ten quick reasons the Kindle will fail even though Amazon and Bezos’ name are behind it.

1. It’s big and ugly - it’s no sleek iPhone 
2. I wasn’t invited to the launch press and blogger meeting nor is the CN feed included in the device day 1. 
3. $399 to have the privilege of then buying books to read on the device? Can I get a Fail Fail? 
4. Isn’t reading about the enjoyment of reading? 
5. So now I have to carry an iPod and a cell phone and a Kindle? 
6. Notice the large laptop bag in the demo video? That’s because this guy has to carry his laptop, his cell phone, his iPod and now his kindle. 
7. Be a big hit with the ladies when you whip out your Kindle. "Hey Baby, I read!" 
8. It’s the Homer Car 
9. Can it do images or video? If not, how does it deal with books that have images or blogs that have videos? Is it Lynx all over again? 
10. Who wants to pay for the Scoble feed? Only if it comes with the whiteboard sessions!

The one thing I do like about it is that it *may* change the pricing structure for content. I have said for a long time that there is no reason that blogs shouldn’t charge for their full RSS feeds. Is $2 a month fair for the massive, time-creation-consuming content provided on TechCrunch or Engadget? I think so. The issue of course is that as long as someone offers it free, everyone must. Think about the time and effort that goes into creating the content on a blog - same as a newspaper which you pay for and I would venture a guess that it’s more than a book which you pay many $$ for. Does a craftsman give away his woodworks for free? I think not.

Devices are becoming more and more multi-use, yet this feels like a step backward. And if it wasn’t created by Amazon, would anyone care?

This device might work for the very affluent crowd but it doesn’t have mainstream appeal. Compare it to the iPhone which everyone in every demographic wants. It could have been sexier.

Source:CenterNetworks -

Below are five of the newest startups according to Killer Startups for the period ending November 20, 2007. Check out previous Killer Startups posts.

NearlyWeds.com - Getting Married? Document It All Here

Getting married? If you’re one of the many thousands about to cross the threshold, take a peek at NearlyWeds, a site dedicated to people just like you. You’ll get an ad free website with a blog (so you can share all your pre-wedding jitters and doubts), unlimited photos for before and after, online invites, pushpin maps to keep track of your guests, and sharing tools. NearlyWeds have come up with coordinated websites and invitations, so not only will you save money on paper invites, you’ll also get some points for style. read more »

Billeo.com - Online Bill Pay

How do you pay your bills? If you want a simple and practical means of getting those bills out of the way, try Billeo. This epayment service is as straightforward as it gets; they’ll remind you when you have to pay and they’ll track all your payments online. Billeo provides you with stats, telling you how you compare to everyone else– something your bank probably doesn’t do. Besides that, Billeo memorizes your passwords and auto-fills your account info for faster and simplified transactions. read more »

FamilyOven.com - What’s For Dinner?

Fearing the idea of telling the family you’re having lasagna for dinner – again? Maybe it’s time for you to check out some new recipes that sites like FamilyOven have to offer. FamilyOven is a cooking community which combines its members’ common love of the culinary arts with a social twist. Here, you can check out new recipes while you make new friends who share your interest in quality cooking. You can browse recipes by category (soups, international, breads, etc) which in turn come with loads of subcategories. read more »

TxtVox.com - Now You Know

TxtVox helps you get the information you want when you want it. Instead of being stuck in traffic because you took your usual route home without knowing about a three car pileup, you could have avoided that route thanks to an alert from TxtVox. Or perhaps you would have brought your umbrella to work if you only knew there was going to be an afternoon rain shower. TxtVox can give you these alerts and more. >From Craigslist items to stock alerts, from weather updates to sports scores, TxtVox lets you personalize the alerts you care most about. read more »

PropertizeMe.com - Manage Your Rental Properties

The Chicago based Propertize helps property owners manage their properties. The web-based app has been designed especially for smaller investment portfolios. Features include income and expense tracking, automatic fill-in, integrated reporting, tax report options, multiple user access and calendaring tools. Users are able to input tenant and rental info quickly and without any hassle using the Propertize dashboard. read more »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Killer Startups, Reviews, billeo, familyoven, NearlyWeds, PropertizeMe, TxtVox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.