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Source:Mashable!

GoodReads, a social network for book lovers, is adding the increasingly ubiquitous status update feature to its site. Taking a page out of Twitter’s book, GoodReads asks not “What are you doing,” but rather, “What page are you on?” Once you’ve answered that question, you can also input your current thoughts on a given book in 140 characters or less.

Status updates will be displayed throughout GoodReads, which in turn serves as both a way to read microreviews and also discover other people who are reading the same things as you. For instance, each book’s page will feature recent status updates from members, with the homepage featuring a Facebook News Feed-like display showing recent activities of your GoodReads friends, including their latest status updates.

GoodReads has been on a healthy growth trajectory since launching in early 2007. The site now has more than 1.5 million users who have added more than 30 million books – up significantly from the 5 million books users had added around this time last year. Unique visitors are also up sharply according to data from Compete:

So are microreviews likely to be the next big little thing on niche social networks? The GoodReads integration certainly makes a lot of sense, and given the number of Tweets declaring that “Tropic Thunder was hilarious!” or “the new Zune is sooooo cool” (ok I made that one up) there would certainly seem to be an opportunity to increase engagement by adding targeted status update features.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:GoodReads Hits 5 Million Books & Launches Interactive WidgetFacebook Removing “is” from Status UpdatesFacebook Status Updates: The “is” is No MoreGoodReads Social Networking Site Well On Its Way To 1M UsersTwitter Updates Now Connected to Facebook StatusThe Daily Poll: How Often Do You Broadcast Your Status?Facebook for BlackBerry Drops The “Is” From Your Friend’s Status Updates

Source:Mashable!

If you want to share a webpage with one or more people, you might use a social bookmarking service such as Delicious or Faviki. But if you want to highlight a particular section of a page, or a sentence or two within a paragraph, you may have relatively inelegant solutions to do so.

The old copy-paste thing might do the trick, or you might direct friends to search for a particular phrase via a browser’s built-in finder utility. But if the process becomes routine and cumbersome, you might prefer a browser plugin or extension to take as much tedium out of the process as possible. That’s where Reframe It comes into play.

Reframe It can perhaps best be described as a hybrid. One part Delicious, another part Awesome Highlighter, plus some commentary, arranged in a way that essentially pays homage to your run-of-the-mill word processor.

It does take a bit of a leap to get involved with. An extension is needed (options are available for Firefox and Internet Explorer users), and you’ll have to convince anyone not registered with the service who you intend to share material with to sign up as well. (Gmail imports and quick invitations are both possible.)

Once you complete these steps, however, the outcome is pretty remarkable. The concept is like that of Bubble Comment in that your objective is typically to direct the recipient of a message in one fashion or another. Except that Reframe It is entirely text-based, and is exclusive to members.

The comment options available within Reframe It are fairly noteworthy. You can specify your message as a ‘General Comment,’ ‘Question,’ ‘Counter Argument,’ ‘Supporting Argument,’ which gives perspective to particularly busy pages. Furthermore, you can specify whether you only wish to share a comment with contacts within a group of users or the entire Reframe It membership. As you might suspect, this is quite useful, particularly if you happen to converse with multiple groups.

The only gripe I can muster with the Reframe It service is the fact that the plugin, fixed to the right-hand margin of your browser, shows no quick way to minimize the software from view. You’re required to click a button labeled ‘Margin’ and from the drop-down menu choose ‘close margin.’ If you’re in no rush, this isn’t such an annoyance. But do it once, twice, ten times or more and you’ll recognize this as the unnecessary two-step that it is. (Here’s a tip: When the margin is expanded, place your cursor on the leftmost edge of the plugin, click and drag it to the right of the screen.)

You’ll also have to take a positive approach to the presence of a vertical blue bar in your browser (which seems to slow down Firefox’s performance by a very slight amount), but that’s pretty much a make or break point for prospective users. If you don’t mind it, all will be well. If not, then… not.

As a Web service plus utility, Reframe It is a commendable piece of work. You’ll need a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it, and you’ll have to appreciate the way it lives within Firefox and IE. But once you do, its value becomes quite clear and in fact grows the more it is used.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Twenty People Save 20% at SF NewTech

Source:Mashable!

Up until now, discovering new music online has been mostly either a social experience through services like iLike and Last.fm, or a function of the wisdom of the crowd determining “most popular tracks” on big music stores like iTunes and Amazon. Today, a new entrant into the space called Mufin adds a new twist: recommending songs based completely on their sound.

Utilizing technology developed in part by the same folks who created the MP3 format, Mufin analyzes more than 40 different characteristics of every song in its system to recommend similar tracks. So is the machine better at recommending songs than your friends? Let’s take a look:

How it works:

Similar to other music discovery services, Mufin starts by asking you to input the name of a favorite track or artist. After getting a list of songs that match your query, you can click on “similar tracks” for each title, which is where Mufin’s secret sauce kicks in. For each song’s similar tracks, you can see the percentage match, based on the characteristics that the service looks at, which include tempo, rhythm structure, and which instruments are used.

From there, you can play 30-second previews and continue drilling down by clicking the similar tracks link on any title. If you find something you like, you can add it to a playlist. There is also a link next to each track to buy it via iTunes. Mufin plans to incorporate Amazon purchases by the time it launches publicly next month.

Social networking apps:

Mufin is also building applications for MySpace and Facebook. These apps offer the same functionality as the website, with a few social twists incorporating your friends’ lists from the social networks. On MySpace, when searching for music, you can add songs to your “discoveries,” which in turn can be displayed in a profile widget. Additionally, you can send any song you find to your friends with a Greeting Card feature.

How well does it work?

Overall, I found the recommendations on Mufin to be quite good for my admittedly unadventurous taste in music. What makes the service interesting is that because it is based on sound analysis and not wisdom of friends/crowds, when you enter in the name of a popular artist, many of the recommended tracks that come back are from complete unknowns. This offers a stark contrast to the “people who likes this also liked that” model, where popular artists have a huge advantage.

Mufin plans to exploit this further, allowing any artist to upload their music when the service launches publicly. In turn, that means if an unknown artist sounds similar (according to the algorithm) to a hugely popular band, they may have a much better chance of being discovered than on other services.

The biggest weakness for Mufin right now would be that it is only offering 30 second previews of songs, at a time when many competitors like imeem, iLike, and MySpace are offering at least some form of full track streaming. The company is working on deals with the record labels, but consumers will increasingly expect free music from discovery services, so for Mufin to truly be competitive, it may need to sign some contracts before its technology can shine to its full potential.

Try it out:

Mufin is in very private beta right now, but we do have a few invites for the first 20 people to go here. If you get in, let us know how good you find the recommendations.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Last.fm and Pandora - Music Discovery ServicesTrackfeeder Launches Daily Review Facebook AppWetpaint’s Discovery-Branded WikiLast.fm Partners with IODA - Even More Music on Last.fmMercora - Music Discovery Service (with P2P and Support for Google Talk)MyStrands Launches YouTube-Powered Custom TVmTracks Gets Funded, Launches Beta Site

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under News, music, web 2.0, web, imeem, Web2.0 Startups, myspace music, Last.fm, online music, music discovery, mufin. 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.