TechAddress

Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:33:46 +0000

This post is part of Mashable’s Startup Review series, which highlights great unsung startups. The series is made possible by Sun Startup Essentials.

Company Name

Tigerbow

20-Word Description

Tigerbow lets people send actual gifts to virtual places.

CEO’s Pitch

Similar to how Paypal lets people send money to an email address, Tigerbow lets people send actual gifts to an email address, social network profile, mobile phone, etc. Today, users can buy books, audiobooks, DVDs, and Blu-ray movies - an expanded gift catalog will launch soon - and send them to their friends without knowing their physical mailing addresses. Ultimately, Tigerbow will be integrating its technology with other online merchants so that their customers can send actual gifts to virtual places.

Mashable’s Take

Tigerbow is looking to capitalize on the popularity of virtual gifts by allowing users to send real gifts to an email address (or a Facebook account). The way this works is pretty simple. Rather than provide a shipping address when checking out, you provide the virtual address of the recipient. The recipient will then receive a message notifying them that you are trying to send them a gift, and from there, be able to provide Tigerbow with their address (or, just ignore it if they find it a little creepy).

This concept makes sense on some levels. With more and more of our relationships being virtual, we don’t necessarily have the physical address for lots of people in our social circle. Additionally, some of us are just uncomfortable sharing our physical address. Around this time of year, lots of professional contacts are asking for addresses so they can send a gift, and while that might be no problem for people who work in an office, for those of us that work from home, it can be a bit unnerving.

With Tigerbow, the gift giving can take place without the recipient sharing their address, and without the awkwardness of having to explicitly ask for it. It’s also nice for those of us who don’t maintain an address book – at least one with street addresses in it.

Virtual gifts have become a pretty big business – Facebook recently introduced a new credit system to further monetize its virtual gift giving system. Will people be interested in sending out actual products in a similar way? It makes sense to me, but there is also a certain novelty to virtual gifts that might not be the case with more basic items like the books and DVDs available on Tigerbow. Additionally, if it proves popular, one would assume the big online retailers like Amazon would be quick to add similar functionality, hampering Tigerbow’s growth opportunity.

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.

What’s Your Favorite Social Shopping Site?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:33:43 +0000

Source:Mashable!

MySpace has launched an internally developed application called Primetime that is essentially a custom media player providing access to all of Hulu’s video content. The app allows you to embed the player on your personal homepage and profile, and lets you to search Hulu and watch video from within the player.

MySpace previously allowed users to watch some of this content – like Saturday Night Live and 24 – via a special page on the site, but now, users can simply watch whatever they want from their homepage or profile (where there friends can also watch and in turn add the app). Like Hulu, videos will include various forms of advertising like pre and post-roll commercials.

While it’s not surprising that MySpace is moving to make better use of Hulu content – it is after all a joint venture between parent company News Corp and NBC Universal – it does represent a massive opportunity to expand Hulu’s distribution. MySpace is still the world’s second largest social networking site, reaching more than 100 million unique visitors per month.

And while Hulu has shown impressive growth in its first year, many of those 100 million MySpace visitors probably haven’t checked it out yet - that all changes with the Primetime app. Smart move by News Corp to better integrate these two properties.

Source:Mashable!

Popacular, a site that measures popularity of websites according to the number of related tweets, has a huge counter that counts the overall number of tweets. I don’t know how accurate this thing can be, given that it’s third party, but if it is, then we’ve recently surpassed the billionth tweet mark.

This is just another sign of how big Twitter has become. For comparison, Facebook recently announced they host 10 billion photos in their database; however, Facebook is huge and has been around much longer than Twitter. If anyone ever needed a clear sign that Twitter has gone mainstream - however you define it - this milestone is it.

Also, seeing that counter spin amazingly fast makes us sorry for all those times we’ve made fun of Twitter’s engineers for not being able to keep the site up during a traffic rush. Sorry, guys, we understand now.

Source:Mashable!

This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services.

Unlike most categories in The Open Web Awards, social shopping is comprised largely of companies that sell physical goods (or at least procure them on behalf of their customers). Last year, our people’s choice winner was Zlio, a French company that lets you create your own online stores, while our judge’s choice was Woot, the “deal a day” website with a cult-like following.

Which social shopping site was your favorite over the past year? Nominate it using the widget below:

Make Your Nomination

Mashable Open Web Awards

Spread the Word

Feel free to elaborate on your nomination in the comments, or try to gain more support for your favorite service by copying the widget to your blog (click the “Grab This” link in the widget above)!

Support Our Sponsors

The Open Web Awards is made possible by our sponsors. By supporting the Open Web Awards, these companies reward and encourage innovative web technologies. We can’t thank them enough for sharing our passion: building great web companies.

Platinum Partner

“PartnerUp brings small business and social networking together to create a community where entrepreneurs find the people, resources and information to grow their businesses.”

Gold Sponsors

“iStockphoto is the world’s leading image market and a revenue-sharing social network. Browse 3.5 million images and videos starting at $1 or become a contributor.”

“With Quintura’s advanced visual-based search and analytics solution, content publishers can increase site usage while creating new ad revenues”

Prize Sponsor

“Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, most of which are produced within 24 hours.”

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

What to do After Selling Your Startup to Microsoft? Sell Toilet Paper and Trash Bags

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:32:42 +0000

Source:Mashable!

In 2007, Microsoft acquired Jellyfish, a social search engine that ultimately became the Live Search Cashback program. The company’s founders – Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire – have since moved on, and are now working on a stealth startup called Alice.com that is announcing a $4.3 million financing round this morning.

While the founders aren’t giving away too many details just yet, what they are saying is intriguing. According to Wiegand, “The sale of consumer staples like trash bags, toothpaste and bathroom tissue is a huge untapped eCommerce market that is ripe for innovation. We are thrilled to be leveraging the Internet to change the way consumers supply their homes with these consumer staples.”

The company’s website promises “free shipping, saving you time, and making sure you never run out of bathroom tissue” and “[fewer] shopping trips, clipping coupons, and hauling a case-pack of laundry soap out to the car to save a buck.” So, from that you can surmise that Alice.com is essentially some sort of subscription club for consumer packaged goods – you know, the one-offs that you’re constantly running out to the store to replenish when you realize you’re out of them.

I’ll wait to pass final judgment until the actual service comes out, but from what we know, Alice.com seems like an intriguing service targeting an underserved market. And, as is true with any down economy, consumer staples like laundry detergent and soap are the best market to be in, so Alice.com may just be onto something. The site is expected to launch publicly in Spring 2009.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

35+ Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Your Business

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:32:30 +0000

Source:Mashable!

The Internet radio and on-demand streaming music service Last.fm is host to over 5 million songs spanning numerous independent and big-name studios and publishers. So today’s unveiling of a partnership with LyricFind to insert some 800,000 lyrics among Last.fm’s song catalog isn’t a full sweep. Yet it includes many popular artists old and new, from The Beatles to Pearl Jam to Radiohead, enough to satisfy plenty of listeners.

The presentation of lyrics on Last.fm is similar to how you would find such material formatted in places elsewhere on the Web; center aligned and easy to read. But there are some inconsistencies to be found insofar as text spacing is concerned. (Take a look at examples #1 and #2.)

Another concern for listeners may be the position given to lyrics relative to other features. For instance, if you visit an artist’s main page on Last.fm, you’ll find biographical information, a music player, followed by recommended material as well as sections home to videos, albums, top tracks, and the comment roll. A link for lyrics isn’t evident. Neither is it visible with a specific album page in view. Users are required to drill down to an individual song page to see a lyrical preview (if it exists). One more click will bring you to the full transcript.

Despite this structural makeup, Last.fm’s deal with LyricFind - launched for U.S.- and Canada-based listeners first, to be followed by more places “in the near future” - is worthwhile if only to give visitors an impression of a complete experience. The site has worked to do so with audio and video. Lyrics simply help to finish the picture.

For the time being, Last.fm does not display advertising beside each full lyric, but just as with real estate elsewhere in its archives, it will invite advertisers and sponsors to make themselves seen alongside text provided to users. This will involve “the ability to skin the entire page.”

Source:Mashable!

With the shape of the economy and ever changing gas prices, online shopping may end up growing even faster than some have predicted. If your business hasn’t added an online shopping cart yet, why not? The technology has been around for years now, and there are solutions for just about every skill level: you can do it yourself, outsource the work, pay companies for hosting, or even turn a WordPress blog into a simple shopping cart using plugins. Here are over 35 shopping cart solutions for your business.

Does your company already use a shopping cart solution? Tell us about your experience with it in the comments.

Hosted Carts

AAcart.com - Offers three levels of pricing plans that come with hosting included. Also offers customized solutions and design.

eCrater.com - A free online store builder that also allows you to enter your products into their marketplace for free, while also entering them into the Google Product Search.

Etsy.com - An online store builder and marketplace that restricts itself to products that you make. This include all sorts of arts & crafts, buttons, clothes and so on.

GoEmerchant.com - GoEmerchant offers both fully hosted options and the ability to just add buttons to your already existing site.

Merchandizer.com - Merchandizer offers hosted packages from extremely basic all the way up to your own fully dedicated hosting. Also offers design and logo services if you need them.

NetworkSolutions.com - The well-known domain registration company also offers online storefront hosting and setup.

SmallBusiness.Yahoo.com - While Yahoo offers you the ability to use their shopping cart on a site you build yourself, their wizard powered store is by far their most popular product. It offers you pre-built templates for the look, but uses their own brand of HTML, which makes hiring a designer for a unique look almost a necessity.

StoreFront.net - Focuses on customized solutions that vary by store size, hosting needs and so on.

Stores.eBay.com - eBay stopped being just an auction site a long time ago and offers you the chance to set up your own storefront on their popular site.

Free Self-Hosted Carts

CubeCart - CubeCart offers version 3 of their software for free, but charges for version 4 after a free 30 day trial. Offers bulk upload, inventory management, shipping modules and everything else you would expect from a fully operational online store.

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software - A fairly new free shopping cart that puts a heavy emphasis on not having to know how to code, run databases or anything else.

IdeaCart - A free cart still in its Alpha phase, features fraud detection, newsletter support and more.

JadaSite - JadaSite is a bit unusual in that it’s Java based, as well as fully integrated with a content management system.

Magento - Launched in 2008, Magento is one the newest open source shopping carts on the market.

OpenCart - An open source PHP shopping cart. It’s been a while since it has been updated, but everything appears to still be up and running.

osCommerce - One of the best known shopping carts out there, this open source cart enjoys a large community of plugin creators. It has been quite a while since their last major release, v2.2 RC 2a, but they are in active development of version 3.0, which promises some major administration upgrades.

PrestaShop - An extremely new open source shopping cart that already seems fairly full-featured, and promises more to come with an area for expansion modules to be opened in the near future.

Quick.Cart.Lite - Quick.Cart.Lite is the free version of the Quick.Cart software and will allow you to build a simple online store. Offers two more robust levels of the same program with more features.

Satchmo - Built on the Django framework, Satchmo offers highly customizable shop building with a long list of built in features such as Google Analytics incorporation, PDF invoice generation and more.

Ubercart - Ubercart is a full-featured shopping cart that also integrates with a Drupal site so that you can build a community around your store or featured products.

VirtueMart - A shopping cart built specifically for integration with the Joomla! and Mambo content management system.

Zen Cart - Zen Cart is an off branch of osCommerce that comes with several of the most popular modules built into it.

Purchasable Self-Hosted Carts

1ShoppingCart - 1ShoppingCart offers you the ability to add “Buy Now” buttons to your already existing site, while offering you many of the features you expect from complete shopping carts.

Actinic - Actinic offers multiple shopping cart solutions based on your budget. Packages range from $499 to $3499 depending on your needs.

CS-Cart - Gives you full access to the source code so that you can customize your online store as you see fit. Makes heavy use of AJAX to reduce server load as customers change only a portion of a product’s page.

Interspire - Offers three versions of their software, all with numerous addons. However, if your store is of any substantial size (over 500 different items), you have no choice but to go for the ultimate $1800 version.

JShop Server - A UK-focused online shopping cart system with all of the usual bells and whistles.

JustAddCommerce - A “buy button” system that will work with HTML editors such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage to add an online store to any site.

Lite Commerce - A direct competitor to X-Cart, they have a lower initial price, but charge for numerous add-ons for extra functions.

Miva Merchant - One of the oldest purchasable shopping carts seeing as it has existed since 1995. Offers QuickBooks sync, all of the usual bells and whistles, and the company offers unique designs.

ShopSite - ShopSite offers a free starter version, but it is extremely limited. Paid versions range from $495 to $1295, and they also offer hosting if needed.

VP-ASP - VP-ASP offers three levels of their shopping cart software, all of which include 12 free months of updates in their purchase price. In addition to US shipping, offers options for Australian and Canadian post shipping.

WebMasterCart - Cart has been around since 1998 and has been continually upgraded. Offers licenses for 1 site for $199 or unlimited domains for $995. Price is a one time licensing fee with 1 year of updates.

X-Cart - X-Cart offers both single merchant installations and versions capable of handling multiple merchants checking out through the same shopping cart. Offers numerous payment and shipping module integrations.

WordPress Shopping Carts

eShop - Gives you the ability to add a PayPal powered store to your site. Allows one item per post or page.

Quick Shop - A shopping cart for your WordPress blog’s sidebar.

WP e-Commerce - A popular shopping cart option for WordPress blogs which makes it easy to sell things like ebooks, mp3s, clothing, crafts and more.

YAK for WordPress - A simple shopping cart for WordPress that turns posts and pages into product codes and the item description.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Buy Stuff “As Seen On YouTube” With New Click-to-Buy Platform

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:30:19 +0000

Source:Mashable!

How many times have you seen a YouTube video and just had to buy a product or a service related to the video? Ok, never. But still, if you want to spend your hard earned cash in these times of looming recession, now you can do it directly from YouTube.

Thousands of YouTube partner videos will now get click-to-buy links, which appear on the watch page beneath the video, right there with the other community features, like share, favorite, or flag. For starters, iTunes and Amazon.com links will be embedded on videos from media companies such as EMI Music - I cannot see it, because it apparently works only in the United States. Google says that they’ll slowly expand this program to international users, too.

Google promises that this is just the beginning of a broad e-commerce platform from which both users and partners will benefit. Partners who use YouTube’s content identification and management system can enable these links on user-generated content, if they use Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site. So, next time you create that viral video, kids, make sure that it features a lots of enticing products which your viewers might want to buy.

From the user perspective, maybe sometime in the future this turns out to be the key of making YouTube profitable, but currently it’s just a bunch of simple “buy me” links which are far from earth shattering.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.