Company Name

uBoast

20-Word Description

Create video resumes, build long-lasting relationships, and utilize a streamlined recruiting process increasing the ease of communication.

CEO’s Pitch

uBoast is a professional networking site that specializes in enhanced virtual resumes, video profiles, real-time video interviewing, contains a job board pooling openings from throughout the entire Web, and hosts numerous cutting-edge recruiting tools to optimize the hiring process. We also have coached, edited, and filmed thousands of video resumes at several east coast college career centers and recruiting offices for job candidates. A private link is provided for students/job candidates that is easy, yet impressive for employers to review when hiring new talent.

Mashable’s Take

At first glance, uBoast looks like a window into the employee recruitment world. And it is, at least in part. It’s something of a three-party actor. On one hand, it is a job posting service/search engine. Pretty basic, pretty simple. It also promises to help develop resumes. And connect with recruiters to simplify and potentially expedite the employment process. And generally offer business networking, a la LinkedIn or Facebook.

It is multifaceted and multipurpose, then, and for a number of users on all sides of the workforce roundtable, that is to considerable benefit, as it brings more elements to the table. If you want to search for jobs manually, you may. If you want help and guidance, the folks at uBoast are there to provide it. Even as an in-person coaching and video recording service. For the time being, uBoast is largely based in Washington D.C., so it can’t quite blanket the country’s job seekers in one fell swoop. But it has told of investment made in its efforts, which has helped spur plans of expansion beyond the nation’s capital. In its own words: “Within the next six months, uBoast’s potential and mass use will be taken through the nation in order to utilize its features that allow for global recruitment.”

The video resume samples displayed on uBoast are not the most inventive I myself have seen in recent years. The YouTube era has been in full force for some time, and plenty of profiles have been recorded with interesting, and sometimes very peculiar takes on professional hopefuls. Still, they are simple and straightforward, and match relatively well with individual resume pages. The corporate theme runs throughout.

Other aspects of uBoast’s portfolio share some of these traits, though each has its variance in design to comply with the needs of their respective user base. Recruiters, for instance, receive ample search and account management utilities to execute their responsibilities both on the candidate and client fronts. In all, uBoast’s value is in the people it is able to connect. As for its job board specifically, its focus on the Washington, D.C. area shines strong. Among the tax agency and telecom gigs pulled from sources around the Web are titles to do with the US Air Force, lobbying groups and a missile defense agency or two.

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.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

Source:Mashable!

There appears to be a new trend in micro-blogging where services are focusing on letting members share how they feel versus just what they are doing. Services such as Twitter and Plurk have messages about things their users are doing and places they’re going, but these new services reveal the inner-most emotions of their users. One could say it’s like a modern day version of the mood ring. Here are some of these “networks for feelings.”

Feelings, nothing more than feelings

http://moonri.se is like twitter but it lets you insert Flickr photos, YouTube videos and even your favorite famous quotations from their sister-site, QuotationsBook. One of its neat features is the ability to send a feeling, which is really a greeting card with attached elements such as a photo, video or quote. Every member gets their own RSS feed called My Feelings, which tracks all of their moods. You can even add this feed to your FriendFeed account if you really want to share with your friends.

MoodMill calls itself a social mood management website. It was one of the first services to try to tap into the hearts of its users. The Mood Makers Chart groups members according to their latest moods, which is handy because you’ll know which friends to stay far away from that day and which ones are in good spirits. There’s also a mood graph which lets you analyze your feelings, as well as an RSS feed for your moods.

I Rate My Day doesn’t have a plethora of features, but lets you rate your day and displays graphs and charts.

Emotionr has a unique slider bar that you use to share how you feel at the moment on a scale from 1 to 10. There are badges and widgets that you can add to your website that will share how you feel whenever you update your status. There’s an ambitious World Happiness section that tracks how you, the USA and the world itself feels. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with that information, but there you go.

The objects of my affection

There are a ton of sites that let users rate and rank things such as movies, books, restaurants, hotels, etc. They allow us to share how we feel about our favorite things. Perhaps these services will be blending and merging with these new emotional micro-blogging services. Here are some of the sites that let people show the world what they love most:

- WeHeartPlaces lets you share which places you love the most in the world. Check out Mashable’s full review of We Heart Places Here.

- I Heart Movies lets you show which movies you dig the most. You can read a full review of I Heart Movies here on Mashable.

- Blippr goes a bit further and lets you share your favorite books, movies, music and more!

Mixing business with pleasure

This whole touchy-feely mess has even spread into the business community and corporate America. As I discussed in a recent post, many sites and businesses have set up shop with feedback services whose sole reason for being is to discover exactly how you feel about those sites and businesses. Are you happy with their new product or service? What don’t you like about it or even us? It’s become one big ole Dr. Phil-fest.

Final thoughts and feelings

Will we see a flood of these types of services that focus on our emotions? I don’t think so really. At the end of the day, most of us don’t want separate services that just do one thing like sharing how we feel or where we are going or what we’re doing. Instead, we want less sites that do more. For example, why not have one service that aggregates all of our feelings and emotions, not just our moods, but also how we feel about people, places and things? Not having to log in to so many sites sure would make me feel better.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:Lori Drew Indicted over Megan Meier CyberbullyingHow Private Are Your Messages on Facebook, When it Comes to the Law?Woman Sues Apple For $1 Million - Over $200 Price CutWhy We Hate Viacom, YouTubers Sue Back EditionGuitarati Open to Public: Color-Coded Music Search Matches Your FeelingsShould There Be a Law Against Asshats Like Me? [smcb]Yahoo Gets Sued for Not Selling to Microsoft?

Source:Mashable!

Mashable is proud to announce a partnership with Yahoo! Search to challenge the developer community to build an app on Yahoo! Search BOSS. BOSS is a completely open API from Yahoo! Search and has already been proven a successful API with such examples as Me.dium, Hakia and Daylife (more examples of what’s been built here and here).

The BOSS Mashable Challenge pits developer against developer to compete for the grand prize of $2,000 and an article on Mashable about your winning entry. How do you win?  Build a kickass mashup – search engine or any other Web app – using the BOSS API and any other data sources/technologies.

Prizes

Grand Prize:

$2,000 and an exclusive article on Mashable about your winning mashup

Runner Up:

$1,000 and Yahoo! and Mashable’s Kudos

For the timeline, submission process, rules and worthy submissions as we receive them, please check out the BOSS Mashable Challenge landing page.

—Related Articles at Mashable - All That’s New on the Web:The BOSS Mashable ChallengeMe.dium Moves into Social Search as Yahoo Launches New Boss PlatformMASSIVE: Microsoft May Acquire Yahoo for $50 BillionYahoo Changes Questionable Sponsored Search Policy. Can Anyone Tell?Bebo Partners with Yahoo Search: Acquisition Imminent?Yahoo Starts Layoffs While Deciding What To Do NextBreaking: Facebook Signs Search and Advertising Deal with Microsoft

The so-called social Web just became legitimately open, as MySpace has launched the two first implementations of its Data Availability initiative on Flixster and Eventful. Simultaneously, the company is announcing that it will support OpenID, allowing its users to sign into any OpenID-enabled website using their MySpace credentials. The move comes one day before Facebook’s developer conference kicks off, where the rival social network is widely expected to announce the first implementations of its own data portability initiative: Facebook Connect.

The implementations of Data Availability on Flixster and Eventful work much as you might expect. On Flixster, users can register using their MySpace credentials, at which point they can import their profile data and connect with any of their friends who already have accounts on Flixster. On Eventful, users can not only import their profile data, but also receive alerts for events coming to their area, based on the artists that the user has friended on MySpace. Hence, if you’re friends with Augustana on MySpace and they are having a concert in your town, you’ll automatically be alerted to it.

All of this information is synced across the Data Availability supporting sites and MySpace. So, if you update your profile, edit your biography, or remove an artist from your friend’s list on MySpace, this will immediately be reflected on Flixster and Eventful. Certain more sensitive data like religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity are only cahceable for 24 hours by Data Availability partners, while core profile data like age, location, and profile photo can be stored on the third-party site, though still synced with MySpace.

Asked about the distinction between data that is cached and that which is stored, Jim Benedetto, SVP of Technology at MySpace told me: “It’s very technically challenging to rely on MySpace’s server [for accessing all of the data]. [As a user] if I don’t want all information to be available to Flixster, I can revoke access and cut it off. But a core piece of information such as my age, email, first and last name that is key to the initial registration, Flixster can maintain control over so people can continue to login to Flixster with it.”

As for the OpenID initiative, much like other Web giants including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo that have announced support for the movement, MySpace is only acting as an identity provider, meaning that while you can use your MySpace credentials to sign into other Web sites, you cannot yet use your credentials from another OpenID provider to sign into MySpace. Nonetheless, announcing support for OpenID is another small victory for MySpace over Facebook, and keeps the pressure on the latter to legitimately open up.

MySpace first announced Data Availability in May, with launch partners Yahoo, eBay, Twitter, and Photobucket. Asked about the status of these higher profile rollouts, Benedetto told me that “All of them are currently working on their implementations. Flixster and Eventful are just smaller companies that were able to move very quickly using our APIs to get them live.”

As for Facebook, they announced Connect with Digg signed on to support the initiative one day after MySpace kicked off Data Availability back in May. Google also has its own hat in the ring in the battle to become your universal profile with its Google Friend Connect offering.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:MySpace Data Availability Goes LiveEventful MySpace App: Tell Your Aritsts Where You Want Them to GoFlixster Calls Down $5M of its Series BEventful Launches Facebook App for Bringing Artists to Your CityTwitter Interface for Eventful: Fact of Fool?Eventful Working with Presidential Campaigns in Grassroot EffortsEventful Demands $7.5 Million - and Gets It

Source:Mashable!

Glam Media, the self-described distributed media network that sits atop the women-centric market of the Web, with either a whole or partial role in over 600 websites and blogs, is expanding its sights yet again this year, just weeks after it introduced a new advertisement marketplace called GlamX Ad Exchange. Today the company unveiled its very own application platform. It is dubbed, simply enough, Glam Application Platform.

Glam is inviting publishers, developers, and advertisers alike to exercise the platform, which it has code-named “Atako” and currently has positioned as a private beta. The company believes the strength of the release resides at its core, where an open-source design has been implemented. (Said to be based on the Google Gadget spec, the platform may also take advantage of OpenSocial and OpenID.)

The Glam Application Platform also arrives with levers to monetize developments easily, with or without advertisements. If application creators wish to go without marketing, developments may be distributed freely, as they would ordinarily, or through direct payments. Any applications borne of the Glam Application Platform will be delivered through a system called the Glam Apps Store.

Whether or not Glam has taken cue from Apple’s own App Store initiative, whose design was first publicly introduced earlier this year, Glam is no doubt employing the concept to further its mission to tap its increasingly valuable content network as broadly and deeply as possible. Since the point at which Glam surpassed iVillage last year as the dominant force in online media space specific to the female demographic, the flash terms “vertical” and “network” have in kind been touted ever more strongly by the company. With the Glam Application Platform there’s no doubt that the company sees its global audience of roughly 77 million monthly users as carrying considerably more value than has so far been realized.

The initial establishment of the Glam App Platform, because it is private beta, may have a limited impact at first, but it likely won’t be long before it does away with developer invitations. In the meantime, the effectiveness of the debut will hinge largely on which designers gain entry to start.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Glam Launches Distributed Media PlatformLifetime to Use Glam’s Managed Vertical NetworkGlam’s New Ad Exchange Connects Marketers, Publishers, & Ad NetworksGlam Media Steals Executive Talent from MySpaceGlam Reigns over iVillage as the No. 1 Network for WomenGlam Signs Google for Ad Brokerage and SearchGlamMedia Launches GlamTV, Offering Indie and Mainstream an Internet Platform

appsavvy is releasing a new tool today, which is designed to aggregate both social media application data as well as platform data. This extends appsavvy’s core competency of bridging the gap between app developers, brand advertisers, and marketing agencies that are operating within the social media space.

appsavvy has worked to offer brands several direct options for integrating their product or brand name into social media applications, from sponsored apps to custom apps and verticals. With a year of established application activity under their belts, they have a good amount of data to work with for further development and exploration in the application advertising space. appsavvy is presenting that data to its clients, on the advertising and publishing end, in order to provide a set of features that they can use for the ongoing improvement of their apps and campaigns.

To do this, appsavvy will be offering data such as historical social network and application performance stats, technical code and procedure best practices, and more. This incorporates open platform data from networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and hi5, integrated partnerships with DoubleClick’s DART , and a communication platform for developers and advertisers to connect with each other. When it comes to advertising, data feedback is key for maintaining good marketing practice, gaining market research insight, and planning the next round of campaigns.

In becoming a third party for certain aspects of Web-based social media advertising, appsavvy extends its own capabilities for providing value within the space. I think it’s a sensible move for appsavvy to make, especially as advertising budgets fluctuate, and the integrated application space continues to provide new ways in which to insert branding messages across the Web.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Orbitz Launches Incentives for Traveler Update ServiceFirefox 2.0.0.8 Released; Enables Leopard CompatibilityWordPress 2.5 Is Finally OutiPhone Update Renders Unlocked Devices UselessMicrosoft Releases Fix for Excel 2007 Computation BugMyBlogLog Lets You Add Twitter UpdatesFacebook Removing “is” from Status Updates