TechAddress

Zenbe: Email Aggregation Socialized

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:39:45 +0000

Zenbe, an email aggregator that dips its toes in social networking, adding a hefty number of features to your regular webmail experience to make it worthwhile, is now out of beta and available to everyone. The question is: is it enough to switch from Gmail or whichever webmail you’re using?

The problem with email is this: for many it’s old and inefficient, but everyone’s so used to it that it’s hard to change their daily email reading habits. At the end of the day, all the extra features that services such as Zenbe or one of its many competitors - Fuser, Orgoo, Jubii - may offer, can simply confuse you and make you go back to the way you read email before, without “connecting to your friends” or “sharing your emails with everyone you know.”

Zenbe, however, has gone so far integrating everything into its service that it’s no longer an email aggregator; in fact, email - although still being the central part of Zenbe - is just a tiny part of what Zenbe can do. The service can perhaps best be called a social networking hub, giving you access to various webmail services (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL), social networks (Twitter, Facebook), chat (GTalk) and several other features (calendar, task list). Other features include ZenPages (which enable you to share stuff with your friends), mobile accessibility, and previewing files from all of your emails in a single pane.

All of this is set inside a neat, tabbed interface that I could definitely get used to. It doesn’t all work perfectly, though. I haven’t been able to connect with my Facebook account from Zenbe, and Twitter also had some problems: Zenbe insisted that it was down while it was, in fact, chirping happily in Twitterland.

Minor bugs aside, Zenbe fares well compared to the competition; the real question is how good it’ll be at making people switch from their Gmail and Facebook and start using Zenbe on a regular basis. It’s hard to tell, but it’s a solid service which deserves to be given a try.

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Mint 11: Hang With Celebs and Elites for Just $10 a Month

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:34:05 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Plugins are great. As anyone who bothers to make their online lives enhanced with conveniences knows, browser extensions, also known as “add-ons,” are a fantastic way to streamline tasks.

At the same time, installation of such software can be annoying. The act of restarting Firefox, IE or Safari is simply a no-go in some situations. Fortunately, the invention of the “bookmarklet” has made inroads in the market over the past several seasons. And because we’ve seen a number of good ones crop up as of late, we thought we’d take a look back to see where we’ve come from and present our “best-of.” Be sure to share your favorites, too!

Delicious

Delicious - Along with Google Gears or Greasemonkey, Delicious is one of those essentials that are hard to do without once you’re hooked. And while it sports a full-featured plug-in for power users, the services offers a bookmarklet as an alternative. Aesthetically speaking, I happen to find it much more appealing than its “big brother.”

Faviki

Faviki - Another social bookmarking service, Faviki is one of those services that becomes more valuable the more invested you become with it. Some features are plain as day, while others are there when you’re least expecting you’d need them. Of course, the service’s bookmarklet only does so much, but its inclusion of a smart tagging feature is reason enough to register an account.

LaterLoop

LaterLoop - So you want to bookmark a bunch of stuff to access when you’re cut off from the Web, and would really enjoy the ability to read that material on your laptop or mobile phone or whathaveyou. LaterLoop helps you do this. Naturally, there are some discrepancies between the service’s plugin and the bookmarklet, but you pretty much end up with the same outcome.

Tip’d

Tip’d - Tip’d is a kind of Digg-like startup built exclusively for people interested in finance. Which, in the current economic climate, counts pretty much everyone under the sun. A bookmarklet allows users to submit links when away from the service. Which is a good thing, considering that Tip’d does not and likely never will achieve the ubiquity that its technical inspiration has managed to reach.

BitLet

BitTorrent? Check. No-plugin and no-software downloads? Check. How much better does it get than that? Not very! BitLet is pretty darn great.

Lizzer

Links are what make the Web as incredible as it is. No question about it. So why not empower Web users with a superfast method to search for and establish links with sites and services and individual webpages that can help enrich their own publications. Lizzer does exactly that. If you’re a prolific blogger and you copy and paste hyperlinks from your journeys online with so much regularity that it really becomes a tiresome practice, this will take the edge off. You might even say it’s a godsend.

Iminta

A FriendFeed-competitor (which also has its own bookmarklet), Iminta behaves pretty much how you’d expect a lifestreaming service to. It incorporates dozens of services into a singular view of what you like and what you do online. Some reviews, including our own, regarded its behavior as more detailed control panel to that of FriendFeed. Is that a good thing? You decide. If you can’t get into the waxing and waning hype over FriendFeed and want something else to chew on, this is a pretty darn good option to dabble in.

YouBundle

A service described as a Mahalo competitor for its aggregate, editor-influenced data collection process, YouBundle is a bit hard-edged compared to the beveled softness espoused by many Web 2.0 ventures today, but it’s certainly got some technical chops to show users. Oh, and it’s got a bookmarklet, too!

Zhiing

This one is about social networking in the real world. Found someplace online that you’d like to visit today or tomorrow with friends, be it for lunch, dinner, drinks, or dessert, or simply just to hang out at? Zhiing helps you get information passed around quickly, whether its by email or to friends’ mobile phones.

Bubble Comment

So there’s a webpage you’d like to share with friends or family, but you’d like to add some witty commentary atop the standard supply of content. (It might be a news article or a comic, for example.) If you can muster up a brief video explainer, Bubble Comment is a near perfect complement to what it is you’re sending along. The service allows users to input URLs on site if they wish, but a bookmarklet is provided for folks who can’t get away from the camera.

Source:Mashable!

I’m of two minds about about the world of to-do list applications populating the Web and our desktop and mobile devices. On one hand, there clearly are far too many. On the other, what suits Joe Taskmaster doesn’t necessary work for everyone.

This leaves me with one conclusion. Bring ‘em on. The count is so large already, what’s the harm in another making its debut? With that said, we shine some light on Wipee List, a simpleton among others in the field.

Simple and Shareable

Though I can’t say I’m a fan of the name, its visual and technical delivery is decent enough that I’m resigned to accept that part of it. Account creation is simple and quick, requiring user name, a password and country specification. Once you get the confirmation email, you’re ready to go. Add items, edit them, check them off, delete them from view with an easy drag-and-drop motion. If you’d like to share your list, you may.

In addition to the present set of options, the developers plan to allow users to customize the style of their lists, and they’ll be launching AIR- and iPhone-compatible applications as well as an API for enhanced utility.

A Dinghy in a Sea of Yachts (and Lots More Dinghies)

For such young public release, the creators have done the unusual and stamped Wipee List with a 1.0 label sans any beta designation, which may seem a bit premature to some users given the rundown of improvements and extensions planned. But the job so far is a fairly decent one. If Remember The Milk or 37signals’ Ta-da List or Todoist aren’t your thing, perhaps this one will suit your better.

Source:Mashable!

There’s social networking of the MySpace and Facebook variety, and then there’s social networking of the premium, “classy,” “sophisticated,” “not-for-everyone” kind that carries a price to join. The latter formula is what Mint 11 is proposing.

Something tells me that this might not work out very well as a business. Unless the membership is pretty loaded, in which case it might be just fine.

Admission is a Bargain, But the Devil is in the Details

You don’t have to be laden with cash to join, mind you, seeing as its monthly membership runs a mere $10.00. But invitations to “posh private parties, celebrity concerts & shows in top destinations such as New York, Miami, and The Bahamas” will only take you so far. If you truly want to keep up with the Joneses, I imagine your billfold is going to have to be pretty thick-sized.

But hey, if the promise of an exclusive network of just “thousands” of users and VIP access to gatherings that play host to “celebrities and the world’s elite” grabs your interest, there’s a registration form ready for entry. Wine tastings, private cruises, the “hottest nightclubs,” and weekend getaways are all on the menu, awaiting your perusal. Store discounts, too, apparently.

For the record, payments and networking aren’t a fresh formula by any means. The entrepreneur-friendly E.Factor has a premium aspect to it. And the model photography service Zivity carries precisely the same subscription cost as Mint 11. Plus, there’s been plenty of discussion had about the pros and cons associated with a potential shift of, say, a LinkedIn or Facebook to a member-financed paradigm. After all, social networking services have become regarded as applications and developer platforms, and there’s a considerable amount of paid-for webware currently in play. For some businesses it’s simply a given that advertising can’t be the sole revenue driver.

Success is Anybody’s Guess

But there’s the active part of Mint 11 that only leaves me thinking, “really?” So we’ll see what comes of it. I’m not bullish about it, yet there’s enough silent wealth out there that may just make it a sustainable pursuit. It’s a toss-up, and fairly adventurous one, you might say.

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Twingr: Create Your Own Twitter

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:30:43 +0000

Source:Mashable!

There are a number of microblogging engines in existence today that work the build-your-own angle of the market. The corporate and closed Yammer and the open source Laconi.ca are two such enablers.

Well, today one more joins the fold. Its name is Twingr. It comes by way of Miami and the Startups.com network and its aim is to give anyone the ability to create free custom Twitter-like forums without having to do much legwork.

Easy to Use

Suffice it to say that the promise of an easy-to-use system is realized at Twingr quite strongly:

- It sports a simple layout that anyone familiar with the 140-character messaging architecture will recognize and immediately warm up to.

- Its community-building component allows you to tap into your Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo accounts to send invites to contacts you know. You have the option to manually send messages to email addresses without having to log into one of the above mentioned services if you prefer to avoid that method.

- The settings menu provides users with switches to fine tune member-to-member messaging access. By default, the main options are as open as possible, except for follower request approvals.

Insofar as microblogging goes, there is little or nothing about Twingr that won’t appeal to registrants. Save for select circumstances for users of WordPress and 37signals webware, who have things like Prologue and Newsroom to interact with relatively small groups of people, a community on Twingr to complement your website or fanclub or whathaveyou can be the very style of forum you’re looking for. Startups.com Marketing VP Pepe Amorin says that the plan for the new venture is really to “let the flower blossom.”

And it’s free…

Again, there’s no cost of admission, at least not yet. It’s in public alpha mode for the time being. Yet even at launch stage it looks like it’s off to a good start. If I am to compare it to alternatives in the field, it has more in common with Yammer than Laconi.ca. But the fact that that it is free of cost regardless of engagement will have the attention of microblog fans who wish to limit the public thread to personal invitees only.

A few final words to cap our review: Pardon the electropop in the demo video below. Yes, it’s just as informative to watch when muted.

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Twitter: One Billion Tweets. Wow.

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:32:01 +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.

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Yahoo Reinvents the Web Portal

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:39:01 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security (S3) project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

Thoughts of a future President Obama have gotten many people in the tech community abuzz with glee. Indeed, this is a great opportunity for new ideas and creativity to impact the federal government, and society in general. As someone who works in the government every day, I’d like to see the readers of Mashable put their money where their mouths are, as it were.

Many people have commented to me personally, and in general, that the term “Web 2.0” and anything else with “2.0” after it is tired. When I was very new to the social software world, I was sitting next to Peter Shankman at a workshop when he exclaimed, “If I hear someone mention the term Web 2.0 one more time, I’m going to [redacted]!” I was half-laughing, and half-terrified, since I had only just recently heard the term!

Using “2.0” to denote applying new social technology to a noun has become practically ubiquitous. So maybe its use is tired. But often people don’t have any better ideas. Articles like this and this prove that while empty criticism is easy to dish out, suggesting good alternatives is hard work.

Searching for alternatives

My gut told me that better ideas were out there. As a preliminary test, I recently queried my Twitter followers for ideas about what to rename Government 2.0, and got one great response from Jody Reale. She suggested “Quantum Government,” which I like, because in physics a quantum is the smallest unit that light can be broken into. If we consider government the light and individual employees the quanta, we might think of social media empowering each individual quantum to achieve more than they could before, and truly make the whole more than the sum of its parts.

Help a bureaucrat out

Let’s get back to Peter Shankman, who created a wonderful crowdsourcing service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which connects reporters’ story ideas with sources’ knowledge. Well, I hope that the people who read this column can “help a bureaucrat out” – what do you think Government 2.0 should be renamed? Please post your comments publicly here on Mashable, and discuss them with me and amongst yourselves. Be creative, be vicious, and most importantly, have fun.

To make things interesting, I’m going to personally give away prizes. First prize will be an excellent blue CIA coffee thermos and other emblazoned gear (pens, etc.). Runner-up will be an awesome-looking classic white coffee mug from the historic and prestigious National War College in Washington, DC. Finally, I will give out a prize for the “most creative” name that isn’t chosen in the top-two (I have to be creative with that prize, so I haven’t thought of it yet – suggestions?).

So, do you have something for me? Can you beat Jody’s “Quantum Government” idea, currently the number one? And most importantly, will the readers of Mashable prove that government crowdsourcing can really work? I challenge you.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, klikk

Source:Mashable!

Want to know what the future for big web portals will look like? Yahoo’s developer team might just have an answer. Using YUI 2.x and YUI 3-based framework, they’re working on a new front page that will enable extensive customization for users; developers, on the other hand, will be able to create third party applications for the page.

Developers should go over to the YUI blog for the nitty gritty details. From the user’s standpoint, this means that Yahoo’s new homepage will be very customizable, with a dashboard area (on the left side of the screenshot) where you’ll be able to check Yahoo and non-Yahoo applications and services. On the other hand, Yahoo will “learn” from your browsing habits and bring you content tailored to your needs. Finally, you’ll feel more connected, as you’ll be able to see what your friends are up to, be it on one of Yahoo’s services or the web in general.

Does all this sound a bit like Facebook? It’s definitely a step in that direction; a web portal should be the center of your internet experience, and social networking is becoming a crucial part of it. It seems that Yahoo has decided it’s finally time to leave the old “portal” concept behind and move into uncharted territory. We’ll see how this pans out for them; I’ve heard people say hundreds of times that the average user doesn’t want customization, and that a simple, static web portal is still the way to go if you’re catering to a massive audience. However, things change fast on the internet; it’s sometimes better to be one step ahead than one step behind.

Yahoo has already started testing the new homepage, starting with the US, UK, France and India: if you’re connecting from one of those countries, you might be one of the lucky users chosen for “bucket” testing. If you’re not, there’s no way to get in, so you’ll just have to wait like the rest of us.

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Keepaboo: Your Child in 3D

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:36:18 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Playing off the age-old “Peek-a-Boo” game played by kids and adults near and far, Keepaboo is a semi-3D digital book creator that lets users share unique and beautiful memories.

Most anything can be included in a collection - photos, diary notes, growth charts, etc. And in addition to a shareable custom-made volume, Keepaboo also manages to establish a timeline for viewers to observe, regardless of how a book might be laid out. The availability of this alternative is definitely nice to have.

Finding movement

At first glance, a book made with Keepaboo, called a “LifeBook,” may seem a little too simple and fairly slideshow-like. Text and colorful graphics can certainly help establish the feel of a book, but when all is said and done, an interactive bar situated below the lower edge of a particular story line may not do enough to emphasize the 3D nature of the service.

Instead, it is the way individual pages behave in accordance with movement of a cursor that really captures your eye.

Just mouse over the corners of an open book, and you’ll see movement just as you would if you were handling them for real. To some extent, no clicking is necessary to trigger these occurrences, but if you want to complete a full page turn like so, a combined click-and-drag action will make it happen.

A small suggestion

Of course, it’s really so basic a thing to do that it shouldn’t warrant heaps of praise. But if I were the individual pulling strings behind the proverbial curtain at Keepaboo, I would quickly work to de-emphasize the buttons and slider bar that sit separate from the main attraction and allow viewers to discover on their own this elegant method for experiencing snapshots.

Doing so would also serve to put Keepaboo even further into its own niche of the baby journaling world, populated by the likes of Kidmondo and others, making it an instant highlight for Web-savvy parents everywhere.

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HOW TO: Grow a Startup 300% in 3 Days? SocialMedian Tells All

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:32:34 +0000

Source:Mashable!

SocialMedian was barely a thought for people back in February, but it has gained a solid following in the 9 months

of its existence. Many people would ask why this startup has gained any traction. It is yet another social news site with voting and commenting. Did we really need another? Given the amount of traffic that socialmedian is getting, it is obvious that they are onto something.

With this in mind, I figured it was time to chat with SocialMedian Founder and CEO Jason Goldberg and find out if things were actually as good as they sounded.

A look Back

During the summer, there was rapid growth as SocialMedian added Google Reader and other service integration, as well as replize. These features were added because of user feedback. Goldberg has stated several times, “Our model at SocialMedian has been: small, fast, and listen to users.” You have probably noticed that you do not see any advertising or many press releases plastered all over the major news sites. Essentially, SocialMedian has been built through its user base. The only “press coverage” you tend to see are reviews from various blogs, including here on Mashable.

Almost a month ago, SocialMedian integrated with Facebook and users saw a large amount of traffic coming from the popular social network. Also, in the weeks leading up to the election, socialmedian announced partnerships with the Washington Post and The Guardian. Their election widget was gaining adoption, and Goldberg stated that the few days following the widget release had seen a 300% increase in traffic. Why? It is probably due to the partnerships created through the Election Talk widget.

A chat with SocialMedian

Rob: How big of a traffic boost did the Facebook integration give you?

Jason: We got a nice initial boost when we launched our Facebook integration as our existing members were suddenly easily able to find and follow their Facebook friends and to invite new friends to check out SocialMedian. Since then, Facebook has been a steady boost for us as our users have amplified their SocialMedian activities to their Facebook friends and new users have also taken to our Facebook features. On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of overall impact to our growth and engagement, I’d say Facebook integration has been about a 7, but has the potential to be a 10 with some new developments we have planned to even better leverage the Facebook platform.

One thing the Facebook integration launch did though was it really went a long way towards starting to mainstream SocialMedian. I used to measure our growth entirely on new registrations. It taught me that awareness comes first then adoption. The Facebook integration made a whole bunch of new people suddenly aware of SocialMedian via their Facebook friends. After seeing SocialMedian postings on their friends’ Facebook pages for the 5th, 10th, 50th time, you start to see adoption. The second thing it did was really up the engagement level on SocialMedian. Suddenly it was really easy to follow people via Facebook. That hit our currently active users with a slew of new follow messages, which ignited them.

Rob: Obviously, the Washington Post and Guardian partnerships are a big deal. Do you see SocialMedian making several partnerships like this?

Jason: YES! It took us two weeks to put together the micro-site election.socialmedian.com for the Washington Post and then 1 phone call to get The Guardian excited about taking the widget. Now we know how to do it fast and know better to get ahead on working with more partners to include them. We also built this in a way in which we can replicate it again and again and again with only 2 days to get a micro-site up and running for any topical SocialMedian news network.

We’ll do our second one next week for the Monaco Media Forum event in Monaco November 12th, where the Prince of Monaco brings together 300 leaders in the transformation of media. It’s a closed event but SocialMedian will enable people to follow every blog post, video, picture, and tweet from home. You heard that here first. The page for that will be http://mmf.socialmedian.com.

Rob: Do you see any scalability problems with the micro-site idea? Meaning how often can you do these without affecting how much staff you must maintain?

Jason: No. It basically builds right on top of our “news network” concept in which anyone can create a news network to gather and discuss news about a particular topic. For these microsites like election.socialmedian.com or mmf.socialmedian.com, all we really do now is apply a template created for the election site which adds some additional views like “rising fast” in addition to “popular” and “recent” and which enables anyone to grab and embed a widget for the news network. We can do hundreds of these without any negative resource impact.

Rob: At the beginning of November Quantcast showed SocialMedian at just over 160K page views, what is the real traffic? I saw the email regarding the 300% increase over 3 days. Does that give you over 475K pageviews?

Jason: Conservative estimates had socialmedian at 500K pageviews (rolling 30 days). October ended consistently above 20K per day. Overall, there were 225K pageviews in September, 280K in October, and 120K the first week of November with traffic rapidly increasing as we got closer to the election. Quantcast has significantly more conservative numbers.

Rob: So how do you measure user engagement?

Jason: Clips/day is our best measure of engagement. Clips aggregate all user activities: clipping, sharing, like/dislike, and 1st comment a user makes on a story. In the past 60 days we’ve gone from averaging 1500 clips/day to more than 3500. We have seen the same sort of increase in comments as well. We attribute our replize feature, where users reply to other users vs. just leaving comments, as the key to the rapid rise in comment levels. One thing worth noting is that Mixx has probably 4-5x our traffic, but we are far higher than them on clips/story vs. their votes, and comments/story. In other words, we have more quality traffic we think and more engaged users.

Rob: Have you seen a traffic boost due to the election partnerships?

Jason: We see that our user growth has been more about the tech community suddenly all talking about SocialMedian at once vs. being all about the election. Over the past 4 days we’ve added more new registered users than in the previous 4 weeks. We’ve seen our 3 biggest traffic days yesterday (on a Sunday!) and the two prior days. It happened because users started talking publicly about how they seem to be getting value from SocialMedian. Nothing beats positive word of mouth. And we’ve worked really hard to cultivate that, while spending $0 on outbound marketing.

It’s all about satisfying users and getting them engaged in the service. Then, when they recommend the service to their friends or readers, it helps that newbies see a party going on when they get to SocialMedian (a vibrant community) that they can join in on vs. have to create. Notably, our strongest area is still tech news and we still have a very tech-oriented early user base, but at the same time our users have created more than 2000 news networks on all sorts of topics.

Rob: Will end of election season hurt traffic significantly, or are you seeing increased engagement from the new users?

Jason: So far we are holding up very nicely as new people introduced to SocialMedian because of the election and from Twit.tv seem to largely be staying around. This past Sunday was our biggest Sunday in history and Monday was better than the Monday before the election…so far so good. I think it’s fair to say that the election helped draw people in but the discussion continues around the news of the day.

Rob: What is the biggest complaint from users and how are you addressing it?

Jason: The biggest feature request we have is for us to add topical news search. We have none right now. That’s coming in just a couple of weeks. We’re also working on better filters and cleaning up the UI, which have been big user requests/complaints.

Rob: What do you see as the biggest reason for success?

Jason: The biggest reason for success is simple. We listen to users. We have done very little to focus on growth and marketing and instead focused almost entirely on helping one users at a time find value and get more engaged with the service. Our theory is that one happy user will bring 10 over time. That’s our focus.

Looking forward

Obviously, things look to be going very well for Jason and SocialMedian. It is still too early to determine whether the traffic will decrease now that the election is over, but the micro-sites give SocialMedian the ability to have focused coverage on any major event or conference. SocialMedian is maturing nicely, and I would definitely keep an eye on their future.

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