NEWS: Andreessen's Ning.com takes on MySpace

News/Social Networks/Myspace/Ning
Found on: news.com

I had a dream the other night that I got a phone call from my Granny; she was bragging to me about how she just put together a new "Myspace" in a just few minutes and that I needed to step up my game and before I could say anything in my defense she abruptly ended the conversation by dropping a "holla back youngin!" and hung up on me.

Alright, so I made all of that up, but if Marc Andreessen has his way there would be millions of little mini Myspaces and "Ning.com" would be leading the way.

Ning is a web based company that Andreessen is backing, he and the other investors hope that the new set of tools that they just launched will make creating your very own Myspace so easy, you guessed it -- your Granny could do it - holla!



News.com post:

In Marc Andreessen's vision of the future, MySpace is going to face stiff competition from a million mini-MySpaces.

One of the cofounders of Netscape and a symbol of the technology revolution of a decade ago is now backing a company called Ning, which launched a set of new tools on Tuesday designed to help even the most tech-challenged person build a social-networking site.

"(Ning) is essentially MySpace version 2," Andreessen said last week, adding that he is placing a bet that social-networking sites will follow a similar development as that of Internet service providers of the 1990s.

NEWS: A winning business plan for 'Second Life'

News/Social Networks/Second Life/Business
Found on: news.com

Minnesota-based research company, Market Truths took home first place honors in the first-ever business plan contest in Second Life.

Cnet News.com post:

The honors, announced Monday, went to Minnesota-based Market Truths, which devised a market research and analysis system to help real-world companies figure out what works and what doesn't in the burgeoning virtual world.

The contest's judges rewarded the Market Truths submission because the team has conducted similar market research in the real world for years, and because it appeared to have the best profit potential of the four finalists.

"I was really impressed by the quality of (all) the ideas we received," said Susan Wu, a contest judge and a venture capitalist from Charles River Ventures. "Each one of these businesses could turn into a viable ongoing enterprise, not only in terms of Second Life, but as a service that stands across multiple virtual worlds."

NEWS: Viacom lands video deal with Joost

News/Web Culture/IPTV
Found on: reuters.com

If you don't know what Joost is by now, here's the skinny: the boys that started Kazaa and Skype recently launched a new Ad-supported internet TV service, leveraging the P2P technology that they used to make Kazaa what it was back in the day (totally sucks now) and Skype what it is today.

Fast forward to this story; earlier this week Viacom agreed to provide video content to Joost and it's users in return for a piece of the pie - huge!

Reuters post:

Viacom Inc., engaged in a public copyright battle with Google Inc.'s YouTube, has agreed to offer videos to Joost, the Internet video service created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa.

Viacom said on Tuesday hundreds of hours of TV programing from its MTV and BET Networks and feature-length films from Paramount Pictures will be available to Joost users for free under a revenue-sharing deal between the two companies.

It did not disclose financial terms, but an industry source said Viacom was likely to have secured a slightly better agreement than its traditional deals to receive two-thirds of advertising revenue.

NEWS: New Portal to Second Life: Your Phone

News/Social Networks/Second Life/Mobile
Found on: technologyreview.com

Looks like Second Life's "metaverse" just got a litte bigger. Comverse, makers of the mobile software that allows Second Life users to connect to the "grid" using a mobile phone and communicate to other residents via text messages - scary.

Technology Review post:

With new software for mobile phones, citizens of the burgeoning online universe Second Life will never have to leave their cozy virtual world, even when they're away from their computers. The new software is a program that lets cellular users with Java-based, Internet-capable phones log in to Second Life remotely, see who else is "in-world," and communicate with them via text messaging.

Comverse, the wireless multimedia networking company that developed the software, demonstrated it this week for wireless carriers at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain. Attendees using Comverse's phones could see and manipulate avatars who appeared in Comverse's virtual 3GSM booth inside Second Life. Using simple commands, they could direct the avatar to walk around the booth, identify other avatars, and send them greetings via SMS, MMS, or instant messaging. And in a twist typical of today's virtual environments, people logged in to Second Life over traditional PC connections could walk into the virtual Comverse booth and pick up virtual phones that connected them directly to fellow members logged in from their real phones at the real booth.

NEWS: SXSW Web Awards Reveals this Year's Finalists

News/Web Culture/SXSW/Awards
Found on: sxsw.com

Hundreds and hundreds of developers and web designers from around the world submitted their work hoping to become a finalist in the 10th SXSW annual Web Awards.

Well, for a few of them the wait is over and for the rest there's always next year.

SXSW post:

We are pleased to reveal the 10th Annual Web Awards Finalists below -- all sites that have launched or been completely redesigned in 2006. Stay tuned for more in-depth information on each finalist.

Art
From traditional photography to untraditional performances, this category focuses on web-based collections of life, society and culture.

15x15

Craftzine

Ellipse Foundation

MyToons

Smithsonian Photography Initiative

Blog
Sites that revolutionize the power of publishing by providing regularly updated content of a personal or professional nature.

April Zero

BuzzFeed

Snook.ca

Superfluous Banter

Twitter

NEWS: BrowseGoods (Shopping Engine) Launches

News/Marketing/Brian Smith
Found on: comparisonengines.com

Did you know that 25% of all online purchases are unplanned and a result from undirected browsing? Well apparently the guys at Dotted Pair did and they developed a very innovating way to comparison shop using a Google-map-like engine called "BrowseGoods."



Comparison Engine post:

Last year at eTail, Rudy Patero from Fry talked about how Web 2.0 technologies could be used in the retail area. There was a lot of hype about everything Web 2.0, but not many etailers were taking advantage of this concept. A year later, a lot has changed. Many shopping search engines have implemented a newer look and feel taking advantage of AJAX, user generated content is everywhere in the form of text and video reviews, and there are a ton of social shopping experiments popping up.

Today, I’m excited to break the news that BrowseGoods has launched. BrowseGoods has developed a new interface for visual shopping. I hate to dumb it down, but the easiest way to describe it is Google maps for shopping; BrowseGoods allows a user to zoom in/out and pan around by clicking on a section and then dragging the catalog. I can’t do the service justice through words…you just have to go to BrowseGoods and start playing with it.

Do They Still Want Their MTV?

News/Web Culture/MTV/David Carr
Found on:nytimes.cm

Last week, MTV Networks laid off 250 people, cutting and trimming their television rank and file to make room for web savvy interactive hires at the same time bulking up their internet business - sounds like Viacom, which owns MTV, doesn't want to be caught with their pants down when the next generation of viewers will be spending more time on the internet then on the couch watching TV.

NYTIMES post:

MTV prospered for decades because it looked like what a network might look like if a 16-year-old were doing the programming. But now the music channel is trying to make its way in a multidevice, multiplatform, multichannel world, most of which is being programmed by a
16-year-old.

The velocity of change has left MTV occasionally looking as if were being programmed by an 83-year-old — namely Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, which owns MTV. The network, itself a stately 25 years old, has suffered a decline in ratings and cultural cachet.

Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes.

Web Culture/Web 2.0/Videos
Found on: Youtube.com

Tags ksudigg web2.0 digital ethnography



Youtube Stats (as of this post):

Views: 1,096,437
Comments: 3277
Favorited: 12950 times

Web 2.0 in under 5 blurbs:

This is the 2nd draft, and I plan on doing one more final draft. Please leave comments on what could be changed or improved, or what needs to be excluded or included. Subscribe if you want to be notified when the revision is released.

Some of my favorite comments:

aft3789

Wow, I'm so glad I'm replying on the third page, this is going to be watched like 12,457,553,778 times in a few weeks, and there will be like 75,352,235 replies soon.

Yea, I rule.

okcbkcom

Excellent video - very thought-provoking. The internet has certainly come along way in 10 years.

NEWS: YouTube for Hipsters

News/Web Culture/IPTV/Videos
Found on: vbs.tv

Hipsters all over the world rejoice -- you now have your very own internet TV channel. A joint venture between Vice Magazine and MTV has given birth to VBS.tv, a full fledged online broadcast network.

VBS.tv post:

VBS is an online broadcast network. We stream original content, free of charge and 24 hours a day. We carry a mix of domestic and international news, pop and underground culture coverage, and the best music in the world. People have used words like eclectic, smart, funny, shocking, and revolutionary to describe VBS, but we kind of just snapped our fingers in their faces and went, “Whatever. Tell us something we don’t know.”

NEWS: Facebook and Comcast's Ziddio Partner to Create User-Generated TV

News/Social Networks/Facebook
Found on: prnewswire.com

Facebook inked a deal last week with Comcast's video site, Ziddio.com to enable Facebook users to create and share videos. Facebook is hoping to drive up usage by giving users the chance to have their videos included in a new television series which will appear on Comcast's On Demand menu.

PR NEWS post:

Facebook, the Internet's leading social utility, and Ziddio.com, a national multiplatform user-generated video site recently launched by Comcast Interactive Media, today announced a partnership that will allow Facebook users to create and share user-generated videos and give them the chance to become part of a new television series titled "Facebook Diaries."

Beginning in March, the companies will kickoff a program that includes contests asking users to submit short video segments about their lives. Throughout the contests, Facebook users will be encouraged to upload, view, share and rate the videos. Selected videos will be featured prominently online on Facebook and Ziddio.com and on television including Comcast's ON DEMAND service.

NEWS: Why Google and Gaming Isn't a Killer Combination

News/Web Culture/Google/Abbey Klaassen
Found on: adage.com

With more and more gaming consoles taking advantage of gamers "always on the web connections," it makes since that Google wants to Adsense and Adword their way on to my video games -- I can see it now, me and my friends rocking out to GNR's "Sweet Child O' Mine" on "Guitar Hero 2" and BAM! some pop up comes up with a link to Amazon offering me a deal to purchase GNR's "Best of Album" - hmm, it is a good album.


Advertising Age post:

Google getting into video games seems at first blush like a natural evolution -- after all, gaming is hugely popular and growing, console games are increasingly web-connected, and the search giant certainly hasn't been shy about trying to apply its selling efficiency and contextual tools to other media. But digital-media buyers have a hard time seeing how Google's simplified, automated buying processes could result in effective in-game ads.

Stylehive bookmark of the week: Wallet 2.0

Web Culture/Social Shopping/Stylehive
Found on: stylehive.com

I seriously hate my wallet, it's big and bulky and just down right lame looking, so when I found this little guy on the hive, I knew I was onto something.

Description: Wallet 2.0, the original soft wallet with multi-purposes. It looks nothing like a wallet in the first glance, but after you take a good look of it, you will perceive the beauty of this innovative soft wallet.




Tags: gadgets, gear, geek, gift, wallet20, wallets

URL: stylehive link

NEWS: MySpace's China entry may fall to local partner

News/Social Network/Myspace/Geoffrey Fowler
Found on: post-gazette.com

With over a 137 million internet users, China would be a perfect match for Myspace but is there enough room in an already overcrowded sector and will Fox Corp have enough endurance to jump over all the political hurdles set forth by the Chinese government?

Post Gazette's post:

As News Corp.'s social-networking Web site MySpace tries to steer its way into China's challenging Internet market, it may find that it has to let someone else do the driving.

MySpace has been in talks with a former Microsoft Corp. executive named Luo Chuan, who until December ran the U.S. software giant's MSN online services operation in China. The 38-year-old has started his own company, and says he is in negotiations to team up with MySpace, along with additional partners including International Data Group's Chinese venture arm and China Broadband Capital Partners LP, the investment company of former China Netcom Group Corp. Chief Executive Edward Tian.

It's a global underwear crisis!

Web Culture/Patagonia/Video/Green
Found on: Youtube.com

Tags Patagonia Recycling Mission Recycle



Youtube Stats (as of this post):

Views: 168
Comments: 0
Favorited: 0 times

Agent Timmy's blurbs:

Recruited to help our troubled planet, Agent Timmy has been called in to rally against the world threatening global underwear crisis. Patagonia, a leader in the outdoor gear and producer of polyester underwear, has sent Agent Timmy, the most elite underwear problem solver in the world, to the Teijin Factory in Japan to see their new machine for recycling underwear.