ReferralKey has been described as LinkedIn mixed with AngiesList. That’s not a bad way to put it because they do allow you to build a network of professional contacts as on LinkedIn and they build lists of reputable businesses as Angieslist does with reliable contractors. 

This service focuses on a simple premise: You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your’s. So, you just build your network of contacts and refer the best you know and hopefully they’ll do likewise and everyone benefits from the exchange. ReferralKey does all of the dirty work and helps you track every transaction and analyzes everything for you too.

You can advertise your business on ReferralKey and get listed by your location and industry. They will also register your listing with many search engines. This all enhances the odds of consumers finding your listing. 

Membership to ReferralKey isn’t free, even though they do let you create an account for free and allow you to receive up to three referrals without incurring any charges. Once you’ve reached three referrals you’ll have to decide on which membership plan you want. There’s a Silver Key plan for $10 a month and a Gold Key plan for $20 a month. The differences are detailed on here.

MP4 / Subscribe for Free.

The concept of this service is solid and if referrals can generate significant amounts of revenue then it makes sense to sign up for one of ReferralKey’s membership plans. The site is easy to use and they provide a great deal of useful information regarding your contacts and your industry. The old adage is true: It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts. In this case, it could pay off big time as well.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:ONLINE BUSINESS TOOLBOX: 230+ Tools for Running a Business Online

Boston-based event planning service MyPunchbowl has announced that they have completely relaunched the service today. Last month the company raised $2.1 million in venture capital funding. The big piece of their relaunch is the new Design Studio feature.

The basic idea of Design Studio is that it allows you to very heavily customize a save the date or event invitation. Anything can be customized from photos, colors and text. What’s neat is that everything is customizable so while the background might enter the invitation in blue, it can be changed to pink or green. CEO Matt Douglas seems to love the fact that you can now add ribbons to your invitations. With all of the options available, it will make sure your Halloween invite doesn’t look like the 1,000 others you will receive.

The basic flow is to create a "pick a date" mailing where you ask your event attendees when works for them. Then a "save the date" mailing which can be up to a year in advance. Then the actual event invitation. MyPunchbowl also helps with things like travel and local services to make the event special. Then the thank you note. Basically MyPunchbowl is attempting to be the one stop for the entire event plan. 

Earlier this summer, eVite relaunched and added the option for users to contribute their own designs. I’d suggest that MyPunchbowl adds that option as well. It will get users excited about putting even more time and effort into their designs.

Here’s CEO Matt Douglas demonstrating how the Design Studio works:

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You know how it goes: it’s the weekend, all your friends are busy with their own affairs, you’re bored and slightly inebriated, and what do you do: you come home and start sending e-mails you’ll later probably regret. Actually, I’m more of an SMS sender with this regard, but regardless of the medium, we all know how bad it feels the morning after when you’re afraid to check out the “sent messages” folder.

To fix this, there’s a funny new feature from Gmail Labs. Called Mail Goggles, it activates only late at night (you can, of course, set the time of activation as you please) and over the weekend, and gives you a couple of math problems to solve before your e-mail is sent.

Now, although this feature sounds like something you might converse about over a coffee but never actually use, I’m sure that many late night e-mail senders will eventually realize that it’s better to get frustrated with your inability to solve a simple math puzzle than to be sorry the morning after.

There is, however, one fundamental flaw with the feature. However drunk I may be, I’m sure I’ll always be able to switch the damn thing off in the settings. For the real deal, you should be required to solve an equally hard math puzzle to be able to switch the feature off, otherwise it won’t stop anyone from sending anything.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:New GMail Features Show Up In Some AccountsAOL Mail Updates Include Increased Storage, Maps and Video IntegrationGmail Users are Younger, Richer, Good in BedWill Gmail Morph Into an Online Storage Service?Ymail And Rocketmail? Sorry, Yahoo, But That’s Not Enough to Thwart GmailGmail Going Huge: 9000MB+Yahoo Mail Unlimited Storage: Time to Test the Limits!

Source:Mashable!

CampusLive wants to be a 24/7 RA (Resident Assistant) for college students all across the country by providing real-time information that they can use. For example, students can use the Food Finder feature that lets them find out exactly which restaurants near campus are still open for delivery, take out of dining in. They can read reviews from fellow classmates and even contribute a review of their own and rate the establishment.

The home page is customizable and includes a search bar that can search Google, YouTube, CNN and most importantly the local campus area, including a people finder for the school. There’s a weather tracker that shows the local weather as well as other locations that the student selects such as back home. The TV listings feature shows what’s on the local channels.

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The comparisons to another website that started as a service for college students, Facebook, are inevitable. However, CampusLive makes it clear that they don’t want to compete with Facebook but rather work with them. They’ve even gone as far as to integrate with Facebook so that students can actually see their live Facebook messages from their CampusLive homepage. There are plans to do the same with other social networks that are popular with students such as MySpace and LinkedIn.

The news feed is customizable so that members can display the news that they want to see first. They can include local, national and international news feeds. There’s also a QuickLinks feature that shows the most popular links on campus in an at-a-glance display.

CampusLive started in uMass and currently covers campuses in nine states and 26 universities and growing. There’s no question that this service does provide useful information for student in a timely manner. They need to continue to focus on adding more schools and more customizable features that allows students to build their own virtual dorm room on their site. The trick will be to convince everyone that they aren’t trying to another Facebook or social network which would surely get them a failing grade. If they can accomplish all that then they will pass with honors.

CampusLive wants to be a 24/7 RA (Resident Assistant) for college students all across the country by providing real-time information that they can use. For example, students can use the Food Finder feature that lets them find out exactly which restaurants near campus are still open for delivery, take out of dining in. They can read reviews from fellow classmates and even contribute a review of their own and rate the establishment.

The home page is customizable and includes a search bar that can search Google, YouTube, CNN and most importantly the local campus area, including a people finder for the school. There’s a weather tracker that shows the local weather as well as other locations that the student selects such as back home. The TV listings feature shows what’s on the local channels.

MP4 / Subscribe for Free!

The comparisons to another website that started as a service for college students, Facebook, are inevitable. However, CampusLive makes it clear that they don’t want to compete with Facebook but rather work with them. They’ve even gone as far as to integrate with Facebook so that students can actually see their live Facebook messages from their CampusLive homepage. There are plans to do the same with other social networks that are popular with students such as MySpace and LinkedIn.

The news feed is customizable so that members can display the news that they want to see first. They can include local, national and international news feeds. There’s also a QuickLinks feature that shows the most popular links on campus in an at-a-glance display.

CampusLive started in uMass and currently covers campuses in nine states and 26 universities and growing. There’s no question that this service does provide useful information for student in a timely manner. They need to continue to focus on adding more schools and more customizable features that allows students to build their own virtual dorm room on their site. The trick will be to convince everyone that they aren’t trying to another Facebook or social network which would surely get them a failing grade. If they can accomplish all that then they will pass with honors.

Rising gas prices have made mass transit an increasingly important mode of transportation. Though in the United States there isn’t a subway station every two feet. How do you find them? How do you know their schedules? When is your city going to finally get an updated public transit system? Here are 12 resources to help you answer these questions.

What sites do you use to navigate your local mass transit? Tell us more in the comments.

Bus & Train Services

BusMonster.com - A Google Maps mashup that will help you determine which bus stops are near a given intersection in Seattle, WA.

Google Transit - Google Transit is a part of Google Maps, which lets you plan step-by-step routes around numerous major cities such as Austin, Dallas, Miami, San Diego and several international cities.  Will also allow you to view stations and schedules.

HopStop.com - Gives you subway and bus routes for Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and a few assorted outlying areas. Allows users to submit their own ideas for sightseeing trips in a city.

MBTA.com - The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority website provides you with schedules, fare charts and maps for trains, subways, buses and boats.

MTA.info - The New York City Transit site has printable schedules and info for all of their mass transit systems.

OnNYTurf.com - A Google Maps mashup of the subway lines in New York City and New Jersey.  The service can help you figure out routes and show you stations throughout the city along with what lines run through them. It is available in multiple languages.

SpotBus.com - Helps you figure out the best bus routes in Seattle, WA.  Enter your start point and ending destination and the site will calculate your best route using Metro, Pierce-, Sound-, and Community-Transit lines.

TransitChicago.com - Bus and train schedules, integrated Google Trip Planner, and general information about the Chicago transit systems.

Information About Mass Transit

ELTIS.org - The European Local Transport Information Service provides you with news on public transportation throughout Europe.

MassTransitMag.com - Keep up on all the latest happenings with mass transit around the United States.

Metro-Magazine.com - A trade publication for the mass transit industry with blogs, resources for people in the mass transit industry, the latest news and more.

UITP.org - The International Association of Public Transit website not only features information for people inside the industry, but serves as a public outreach tool to explain to people the benefits of taking public transit.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google to Create Online Transit Guide for N.Y.C.Google Maps Offers NYC Mass Transit DirectionsHopStop Raises Financing, Reports 1.5M Monthly VisitorsGoogle Transit Route Planning Now Works In EuropeGoogle Labs Graduates Public Transportation FeatureGoogle Maps Now Have Transit InfoYahoo Pens Deal with R.H. Donnelley for Ad Distribution Across Local & Maps Search

MomCentral isn’t just another site for moms that want to share stories about their wonderful kids and annoying hubbies (al though they can do so if they choose). The difference with this site is the fact that they actually help companies test products and services and provide valuable feedback that can improve their brand and impact their bottom line.

For example, MomCentral has worked with companies like Hasbro, the game company. They wanted to know what moms thought about a new line of toys for children before going to market with it. They provided the “test moms” with samples and received useful feedback in return. The same type of scenario has played out many times with other companies and varying lines of merchandise and services.

One of the perks of being a part of MomCentral and their mom testing panel is getting lots of free goodies for their efforts. They get to keep a great deal of scwag and merchandise which is pretty cool. In exchange they share their valuable and experienced opinion on those products. This feedback could actually improve the safety of children and benefits all families.

Companies and TV shows like “The View” and “Good Morning, America” approach MomCentral for their thoughts and expert opinions on things. They know that the moms on this service are like a microcosm of all moms across the country. They also know that they’re dealing with moms that have a great deal of experience with evaluating things and detecting potential problems.

MP4

MomCentral claims that their moms are mostly technically savy and extremely active with social media and social networking tools such as Twitter, Blogs, forums, wikis, and more. The site also uses these tools and has a tremendous amount of content in their forums and blog area that keeps all of their moms updated and informed.

This is a guest post written by Jennifer Leggio, who writes about enterprise trends around social media, including security, privacy and reputation issues, for ZDNet.

You’re a thought leader in your industry. You want to convene other thought leaders in one place to share ideas with each other and with those hungry to learn. Perhaps you want to showcase some technology. And you want to make some money. Your vision unfolds as a conference, to which you can attract vendors, sponsors, media and attendees. Then you think about the huge events you have attended during your career – Black Hat, DEMO, Interop – and you think there is no way you can create such an event without the backing of a major corporation or media outlet. Wrong.

The era of Web 2.0 has created a freedom for entrepreneurs that never before existed – though that freedom is not without its risk. That said, all you need to get your conference idea off the ground is a nest egg investment, a good “hub” location, a strong network that you can tap for sponsors, speakers and attendees, and the power of word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) – which is exactly what it sounds like. And, while unconferences such as BarCamp, PodCamp and WordCamp are impressive, I’m talking about a bona fide technology conference.

Don’t believe me? Look at Defcon as a historic example. The U.S.’ largest hacker con is said to have launched in 1993 out of a BBS that its founders and initial attendees were a part of and grew to more than 8,000 people this year. Defcon is an institution in the security community, and while its sister conference Black Hat is now owned by CMP and also provides Defcon a bit of a captive audience, thousands make the trip to Las Vegas for the hacker con alone.

WOMM is said to have a more credible feel than other more saturated marketing attempts, and what’s great for conference founders is that you can carry the passion that made you launch the event in the first place with that word-of-mouth. Below are three examples of conferences borne of a small idea that have grown successful via WOMM. While all three are somewhat regional, all have attracted a nationwide audience and speaker roster:

Gnomedex – Though more business than technology focused, Gnomedex is an example of how someone with a strong personal brand grew a conference out of primarily WOMM. According to founder Chris Pirillo, his entire marketing model is based on WOMM. “If something I do doesn’t catch on WOMM, I consider it a failure,” he said. For example, Pirillo said that in 2001, Gnomedex was marketed through his Lockergnome mailing list, which still has more than 100,000 subscribers. As social media presence grew, i.e. legitimized blogs and the birth of podcasting, so did Gnomedex’s WOMM vehicles. According to Pirillo, “2005 was our breakthrough year – largely being embraced by an ad-hoc community of bloggers.”

Twiistup – In doing some crowdsourcing, Twiistup came back as the most prominent answer when I asked which conferences have the best WOMM. Twiistup, founded by Mike Macadaan, markets itself as an “alternative” to traditional networking events. On a small scale, it rivals DEMO in that it features several startups selected to debut their products to an audience of media, technologists, venture capitalists and potential angel investors. What it has going beyond DEMO is its more “Webby” feel and almost cocktail party atmosphere.

SOURCE Conference – SOURCE Conference is the parent of security conferences in Boston and Barcelona. It launched via SOURCE Boston in March of this year as the first security conference to combine application security practices with the business of security. Due to my background in security, I’ve worked with the SOURCE team and I saw firsthand how the event grew from zero to a few hundred participants in its inaugural event, through 90 percent WOMM methods, making significant use of social networks such as Twitter. Founder Stacy Thayer did not have the personal brand power of Pirillo when she launched SOURCE, but what she does have is an impressive network of contacts in the security industry that she leveraged to build an advisory board and bring in impressive speakers – both making the WOMM that much easier.

You’re a thought leader in your industry. You want to start a conference. What’s stopping you?

[Disclosure: Jennifer Leggio does pro-bono communications work with SOURCE Conference]

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference DiscountWebGuild Web 2.0 Conference & Expo: Mashable Readers Save $49FOWA Conference: 10% off for Mashable Readers Plus Two FREE PassesCall for Companies for Web 2.0 Conference & ExpoOrlando’s Creative Professionals Conference, Create Chaos, Coming SoonIotum Offers Free Conference Calls through FacebookMashable Readers: Save 11% off on Tech Cocktail

The music business has to be one of the most contentious online businesses with so many players involved. On one side you have the record labels who are facing an ever increasing devaluation of their physical media business. You have the trade organizations for the music industry trying to maintain their power base and millions of dollars of income. Then there are all the online providers of downloadable content trying to eek out marginal profit margins; if you can count millions of dollars as marginal. The last two players though of this complex game of power and money are the musicians themselves and us - the fans, the listeners, the purchasers of all that music.

In the last year record companies saw their CD sales fall by 20% to $7.4 Billion while Apple and its online service iTunes is estimated to sell 2.4 billion songs this year giving it about 85% of the online market. Given that it forks over 70 cents of every dollar it collects per song to the record companies Apple’s profit margin is incredibly slim but according to Eddy Cue; iTunes vice president, in a recent CNN Money interview Apple doesn’t believe that the market will bear an increase of the price per song - regardless of what the recording industry might think.

However depending on what happens this coming Thursday when the Copyright Royalty Board set the royalty rates for the next five years; the first possible increase since the online explosion, Apple may have no choice. The record industry is asking that the fixed per song payment be scraped in favour of 8% of the wholesalers revenues. In contrast the Digital Media Association who represent online music services like Apple is seeking to get an even lower rate of 4.8 cents per song; or 6% of revenues.

There has been a rumbling that Apple would shutter the iTunes service if the record label succeed in getting their increase. Their argument being that they are making so little money under the current structure and given that they don’t believe the consumer would accept a price increase and they are in the business of losing money. So at this point where itunes is costing they would have no alternative but to close the service:

“If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all,” Cue wrote. “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

Apple close iTunes?

Ya .. right .. and if you believe that I have some excellent bridges for sale. They would increase the price, consumers would bitch for a little while and then it would be back to business as usual. 

Have you noticed though who isn’t being included in this decision making process of royalties. That’s right - the musicians. Instead they will have to once more depend on whatever the record labels and trade associations decide to dole out after they have taken their cut of whatever ever agreements are reached. In a business that is rife with cooked books and missing royalty payments to the musicians the idea that they would see any of the possible increase in income is farcical.

Then there is us - the fans, the listeners, the purchasers.

Guess what?

We once more have the pleasure of paying more for no other reason that people like the record labels and RIAA want to shore up their power and money streams. We lose - they win.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Gene Simmons Blames Radiohead For The Demise Of CivilizationiLike Launches New Tools for ArtistsMe.dium to Host Online Mosh PitExclusive: MeeMix Gives Customization and Widgets to MusiciansJamNow Launches Music Collaboration SiteJamGate Launches Music Storefront to Compete with MySpaceMe.dium Holding 5-Day Online Music Festival

Source:Mashable!

Mzinga has been around for over eight years so they’re by no means a startup. They’ve been building white label social networks for companies such as ABC, ESPN, Amex and other big time players without much fanfare or media coverage. They’ve enabled businesses to add the social media tools that we use every day inside their protective firewall.

If you go to mzinga’s site you’ll see the numbers behind their success which are staggering. They have over 14,000 communities, more than 1 billion page requests every month from 27 million users in 160 countries worldwide. All impressive stats but the real measure of success is the quality of their clientele. They have a list of who’s who that continue to use their services internally as well as externally. However, because they rebrand most of these solutions to customize projects for their customers, the general public never knows who really did the fancy work. Fortunately, though, word of mouth spreads quickly from insiders so they generate the bulk of their work that way.

One of mzinga’s most popular solutions for companies is adding social media tools such as message forums and chat rooms that allow employees to brainshare and exchange ideas that are wasted otherwise. Most of the time, businesses without these tools never harvest this goldmine of information and lose out on some excellent data that could have lead the way to greater success. Mzinga prides itself on providing social tools that enable companies to communicate better internally amongst themselves as well as externally with their customers and partners.

We sat down and spoke with mzinga at the SummerMash event in Boston. You can check it out via the embed below, or grab the MP4.

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—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Mzinga Acquires Prospero to Grow Online Community Solutions SectorSummerMash Boston is Streaming LiveDemand Media to Acquire Pluck and Pursue Third Party PublishersWatch Out Boston, SummerMash is on its Way!SummerMash BostonSummerMash Boston was Better Than Baked Beans and Cream PieIs the Enterprise Ready for Microblogging Tools like Twitter?

From gas prices to the environment and being able to use the carpool lane, there are many reasons to start carpooling. The question is, how do you easily find people that happen to be driving to the same destination as you?  Luckily, as with almost everything in this day and age, there are Web apps to help you with this very query.

For a double whammy of savings, make sure to check out our list, Check Gas Prices Online: 11 Handy Tools to find the cheapest gas for you and your carpooling buddies to split.

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