Company

Widgadget

20-Word Description

Widgadget is the community portal for widget creation and distribution. It wishes to popularize widgets for users, bloggers and brands.

CEO’s Pitch

Widgadget is designed to help users, bloggers, brands and agencies spread their content exponentially, to get more websites/blogs traffic and to improve brand loyalty. It enables all users to see the best widgets and to create their own in three steps:

The registered user enters their feeds, then, he or she designs the widgets with sizes, colors, images, logo, titles, etc., and finally, adds information that enables the widget to get well-indexed in the gallery (titles, description, tags, etc.). Once created, the widget can be spread throughout social networks, blogs or desktops. The statistics allow every user to track word of mouth effect.

Mashable’s Take

Widgadget lets you create and distribute customizable widgets for whatever you want to promote, such as your website, blog, company, product, service, etc. Widgets can be created in Flash or Java, depending on where you want to use them. You can also embed your widgets on many different platforms, such as social networking profiles, blogging platforms (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.), websites and start pages such as Netvibes, iGoogle, Pageflakes, etc.

There are several competitors in this viral marketing widget space such as Gydget, Gigya, and Clearspring, which have all carved their own niches. For example, Gydget focuses mostly on the music industry, so most of their widgets promote musicians. All of these platforms provide easy to design widget tools and also a distribution channel with ways to monetize and analyze your viral marketing campaigns.

Widgadget offers all of the same core features without any major new features or niches, so it’s difficult to separate them from the pack. One of the things they do well is their customization for each member depending on what type content is being created and distributed. For example, their service is different for members creating widgets for personal use, business, blogs, or advertising for clients. Also, while creating widgets, the service’s performance seemed to be slightly better than the experiences I’ve had on some services such as Gydget for example.

Being able to track each widget and analyze the traffic and popularity of each creation could prove useful for future campaigns. In addition, being able to view all of the different widgets that you’ve created on one screen is very helpful as well. However, I was not thrilled with the inability to add any audio or video content to widgets, which is a feature many of their competitors have. This is significant because some studies have proven that some of the most successful viral marketing campaigns usually (NOT always) include some form of audio or video content. Being able to embed audio content like a song snippet, narration clip or video from YouTube has become a standard option these days.

Here’s a sample widget created on Widgadget in minutes for Mashable.

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!

Yahoo has announced that it will be shutting down Yahoo Live, the company’s attempt to cash in on the live broadcasting trend popularized by startups like UStream and Justin.tv. According to the Yahoo Live blog, “… we constantly evaluate our early-stage products and sometimes have to make the hard decision to move on, in order to continue exploring new territory and developing new products.”

The service first debuted in February this year, with a few novel features like offering up simultaneous multiple streams (though competitors quickly followed). Nonetheless, live video isn’t cheap – especially when you’re on the scale of a company like Yahoo. After persistent rumors that it would enter the live video space, Google said that it would not be adding the feature to YouTube anytime soon because of the huge bandwidth costs that would ensue. And Google is in a much better financial position than Yahoo at the moment.

So, while the shutdown of Live could be viewed as a Yahoo problem – the company is in the midst of layoffs with its stock trading near multi-year lows – there has to be some concern over the implications it has for live streaming on the whole. While some of the startups in the space have shown decent traffic growth over the past year, if Yahoo wasn’t able to attract a big enough audience to make it work, you have to wonder if the other, considerably smaller companies pursuing the niche will find enough users to make a real business of it.

On the other hand, the shutdown could simply be a part of broader cost-cutting at Yahoo, and not necessarily a verdict on the state of live video. Allen Stern reports that the company might have also shuttered Yahoo Kickstart, a career site for students and recent graduates.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:The Daily Poll: What’s Your Level of Interest in Lifecasting?Yahoo Answers Dominates Q & A - No Wonder Google Gave UpRIAA Asks for Lower RoyaltiesYahoo to Close Podcast DirectoryRumor: Yahoo Soon To Offer DRM Free MP3sThe Daily Poll: Live Video – Who Will Win?The Daily Poll: Catching Up Socially

There are only a select number of instances when I consider it appealing to watch live video over the Web, such as news streams from sources like CNN and France24 and TWiT Live broadcasts. What’s your tolerance level? Might it include gameplay?

How about endurance sport? That is, if you can call the act of staying awake a sport. Really, why bother with “Deal or No Deal” and “Jeopardy” and all that stuff? Your idea of fun may instead be, say, witnessing six bloggers undergo the rigors of the the Insomniac Ironman Challenge, part deux. Consider this competition a sort of “Survivor: Bloggerland.”

There’s plenty of time until things commence to stock your shelves with Cheetos, Fritos, Funyons and Red Bull and diet cola. The IIC starts next Friday, October 24th at 3pm EST. Just know that the victor of the inaugural challenge, a man by the nickname of Shaycarl, maintained an upright noggin for 2 days, so you’d best clear the weekend schedule if you’re interested in spending it all in front of your computer screen, waiting for sleepy heads to fall. Unless that’s per your usual habit, in which case keep that browser window open!

The Insomniac Ironman Challenge happens on BlogTV, a live video network akin to Stickam, Ustream, Yahoo Live, Qik, and Flixwagon. Six video bloggers - Shaycarl, CharlesTrippy, LisaNova’s boyfriend, ItsBrent, and EmptyIsAwesome -  will be clocking in. And eventually clocking out.

Is it worth your while? Probably not. You’ll definitely have to prove yourself an exception to the rule to play audience to these “insomniantics.” But hey, there are worse things to be seen on half the 400+ channels piped through today’s traditional television broadcasters. And having seen Shaycarl’s preview of things to come, I can safely say that at least one among the pack will be an entertaining name to watch.

(Image credit: Salvador Dalí)

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It’ll be two months until regulators within the European Commission responsible for issues concerning data protection will hold a hearing with U.S.-based search engines with reference to data retention timelines.

But already those with the job of oversight are expressing frustration with services - Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft in particular - which have so far failed to comply with a limit set earlier this year. The EC demands that they implement a six-months-then-delete program. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., meanwhile, is only projected to issue voluntary guidelines on the matter.

Kevin J. O’Brien of the International Herald Tribune quotes French data protection chief as saying that, “For the moment, Google refuses to submit to European data protection law.” Which irks those services operating in the EU which do in fact comply with EC regulations. One of them being Ixquick, a service featured here this summer.

Ixquick claims a query deletion process of just 48 hours. Google, on the other hand, pledges to do so within 9 months (down from an 18-month standard as of last month), while Yahoo holds information for 13 months and Microsoft for 18. In light of this disparity, Ixquick CEO Robert Beens said, “…the value of the information we derive for advertisers is not as great as that of our competitors, who use the extra time to develop more detailed profiles. We have a slight competitive disadvantage as a result.”

Google is expecting to see a compromise when the December meeting with European regulators, who coin themselves the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, rolls around. And EU telecom and media commissioner Viviane Reding is evidently also hoping to see progress made. She made plain her thinking that Google and the rest of the U.S.-based operators in question should be the ones to move in the EC’s stead. In Reding’s words: “…the European regulations are there for everybody. In our internal market, we have to have rules so that there is a level playing field. It is very clear that European laws have to be applied.”

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Google Receives 64% of US Searches in AugustKrillion’s StockCheck Offers Real Time Search DataGoogle Trends Adds Another Way to Inaccurately Track Website TrafficMe.dium Moves into Social Search as Yahoo Launches New Boss PlatformSearch Engines Must Comply With Strict EU Privacy RulesAskEraser Keeps Your Searches Private - Or Does It?Grayboxx Acquired for its Local Search Scoring Technique

Source:Mashable!

Yesterday we put questions to you concerning news media and the way in which its video services are being consumed on the Web. Most respondents to a poll told us it was friends who pointed them in the direction of content. Social networking to stay informed, in other words. That’s good to hear! Still, there was the question of live video on sites like YouTube that didn’t quite get the response I was expecting.

The option to view news feeds in real-time is something that interests me, and I gather at least a few of you feel the same. Which just so happens to bring into the spotlight today a different service with another name, this one being something we’ve profiled before, and which is turning out to be a very notable alternative to TV-based broadcasts. It’s called Livestation.

It won’t wow you with a sterling design or slick package. And its attribution to Microsoft Research and a UK-based company called Skinkers Ltd., perhaps isn’t something to proclaim loudly. But Livestation is without a doubt one of the most impressive collections of live television viewing for Windows, Mac, and Linux users. The reason being that the number of choices for users to freely consume at one moment or another is fairly large. We first mentioned this item last year, when it first debuted. And oh how it has grown since then.

Want to access CNN? Go right ahead. CNN International is there, too. Plus FOX, Discovery, Bloomberg, NBC, ESPN, ITV, Sky News, BBC, France 24, Russia Today, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera English, CBC and others. Some options provide English, French, German, and Arabic language services as well. And the company just last week added partnerships for BBC Arabic, C-SPAN, Russia Today Arabic, France 24 Arabic, and Euronews German, French, and Arabic. Pretty remarkable, I’ll say.

Granted, this is all very news oriented, which may not whet the appetites of lots of prospective viewers. But the availability of these options enables some measure of consistency. To offer a much broader panoply of channels might detract from the experience, in a way. Regardless, if it’s entertainment you seek, there are several options, including sports, music, and movie and documentary providers.

It’s important to mention that browsing for content via the required software isn’t necessarily the best route to take. The service’s website itself is more amenable to discovering new items - at least when sized up against the Mac-compatible download option. But once you do manage to specify what it is you prefer to watch in your MyChannels column within the application itself, Livestation is something that, with the arrival of more and more streams, you’ll likely often want to keep close at hand.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:LiveStation: Microsoft’s Joost Rival Debuts at IBCLivestation: Microsoft Attacks JoostFacebook and Bebo Takeover MySpace in the UKThe Pirate Bay Grows And Grows: 1m Torrents; 10m Users (And Counting)No, Digg Isn’t Digging Its Own GravecomScore Reports 89% Increase for Facebook UsersLast.FM Opens Gallery for Third Party Apps

Google is under fire today over reports claiming the company failed to include any data for Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan on Google maps.  Worse, some reports suggest that once the fighting broke out between Russia and Georgia, all relevant information about the latter was wiped from Google maps.

According to the Azerbaijan Press agency, all “the relevant maps went blank as soon as fighting broke out.”  But Google contends that that assertion is simply false and it has not changed anything in quite some time.

“Google has not made any recent change to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Google Maps,” the company said in a statement. “We do not have local data for those countries and that is why local details such as landmarks and cities do not appear.”

In response to even more public outcry, Google Maps product manager, Dave Barth, said Google failed to include relevant street and city information because it wasn’t satisfied with available map data.  But in an attempt to quell user distress, Barth said that Google would now input basic information about all of these countries instead of leave them blank.

And while some users are applauding Google for doing just that, I think it begs the question of whether or not Google should populate countries regardless of the quality of data, or if it should leave countries blank until it has the data necessary to make the maps as accurate as possible.

The way I see it, Google has no responsibility to its users to populate every country in the world if it feels it can’t provide them with the most accurate information available.  Along those lines, why would users even want data that Google feels isn’t the best on maps of countries that aren’t generally the most searched for in the world anyway?

As far as I’m concerned, maps should be kept blank if the data isn’t sufficient to populate them and if users don’t like it, well, that’s their problem.

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Source:Mashable!

Is Google-owned YouTube backing out of live streaming video because it’s too expensive? It would appear so, at least according to Michael Learmonth of Silicon Alley Insider. While it’s hard to fathom that any service would require more capital than Google is willing and able to spend, according to Learmonth’s sources, the cost of adding live video would be enormous – a 20 to 25% increase in the company’s infrastructure costs if only 10% of YouTube users adopted the service.

Considering YouTube’s huge user base in comparison to startups like UStream, Mogulus, and Justin.tv, that certainly sounds plausible. There’s also the fact that YouTube is still sorting out its own monetization strategy, so adding more costs and advertising inventory certainly isn’t a priority on the march towards profitability.

Meanwhile, YouTube staying out of the space should be cause for celebration at the live video startups. In a poll we conducted back when YouTube was seemingly poised to launch a live video offering, 69% of our readers indicated that YouTube would likely become the most popular video streaming service. On the other hand, Google staying out of the market also sends a statement that they don’t necessarily think live video is worth an investment at this time.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Pirate Bay Cancels Plans for BOiNKSwarmcast Moves Into Live StreamingVeodia Streams Live from Your Blogustream.tv Aims to be YouTube for WebcastsMadonna Concert Live on MSNcomScore Releases Video Streaming StudyThe Pirate Bay to Launch YouTube Killer

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.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: CoNotes

20 word description: CoNotes is the place to find startup jobs.

CEO’s Pitch: CoNotes aims to solve two problems:

1) People have a tough time finding cool startups that are hiring

2) Startups have a tough time finding the right people

To solve these two problems, CoNotes centralizes job openings in startups in one location, and at the same time provides startups exposure by distributing those job openings to appropriate partner organizations. Some of CoNotes’ other unique features include a company recommendation engine and integration with users’ LinkedIn networks.

Mashable’s Take: CoNotes is designed as a marketplace of sorts, matching startups with job seekers so each party can find their perfect match. The actual format of CoNotes, however, is much more of a directory of startups, similar to Startup Search but with a larger focus on startups. CoNotes moves beyond Web-based companies and features content on companies that don’t even have current job openings.

For each company that has a profile on the site, there is also a section for comments, questions, and related news. The comments and questions are interactive, meaning users can peruse and contribute towards these sections, while the news section appears to be a mini feed of recent activity relevant to that company’s overall industry. The job search itself, however, is rather basic and doesn’t give in-depth search results or an easy-to-manage process for filtering.

As a registered CoNotes member, you can add descriptive tags to a company profile, add a company to your favorites, and take notes. If you are a job seeker using CoNotes, you can also take advantage of the service’s recommendation engine, which offers three companies you may be interested in, based on your profile information. The more complete your profile information, the more CoNotes has to work with. As the profile data is still limited to things like age, gender, years of work experience and your website, it seems that CoNotes can only do so much towards recommending potentially interesting companies. The service offers only three results at a time with no explanation as to why each company may be of interest to the user, which leaves something to be desired for CoNotes’ recommendation features.

There are other things that CoNotes does well, however, such as linking you and companies’ LinkedIn data to CoNotes’ accounts. If you see a company you’re interested in, you can see how many employees it has with LinkedIn profiles, and subsequently reach out to them or learn more information about the company through LinkedIn’s dedicated professional network. This particular feature offers a familiar course of action for a job seeker and aids CoNotes in its ability to extend resources through its network without having to establish an entirely new set of data or wait for users to populate its site directly.

Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials

Source:Mashable!

Flixwagon has launched an application for streaming live video from iPhone, a product they first demoed last month. At the moment, the application only works on jailbroken original model iPhones (running firmware 1.1.4), but the company says it is currently working on a version for the iPhone 3G.

The app can be installed by navigating to m.flixwagon.com/iphone on your device, or by following the instructions detailed here. Most of Flixwagon’s features are included in the application - you can assign each video stream its own privacy settings, edit the meta data, and set the video resolution. For now, Flixwagon recommends streaming via WiFi. Here’s a brief demo of how the application works:

Flixwagon competitor Qik also demoed their own streaming video application for iPhone last month, but it would appear that Flixwagon has beaten them to the punch in getting theirs out the door. Qik’s product is expected to launch soon.

Adding support for iPhones and their early adopter customer base is obviously hugely important for both Flixwagon and Qik to make their technology accessible to more people. Prior to today’s launch, Flixwagon only offered support for Nokia Series 60 devices. The first company to offer a version for the iPhone 3G could be the real winner though, given the device’s lower cost and access to 3G networks.

Some screenshots of the Flixwagon iPhone app are included after the jump.

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