April 29, 2008
Now you can make free calls to your friends from your Facebook profile. IfbyPhone, a Chicago-based telephone application platform company, has just make this possible by creating Phone-Me-Now.
Phone-Me-Now gives Facebook friends free click to call functionality without disclosing their caller ID. I am not really sure if that is a good thing or not but I guess it depends on your objective. I would think it would play to the advantage of a telemarketer but I guess it could be nice to call your friends without disclosing your phone number in case you are trying to keep it private.
The Phone-Me-Now application takes advantage of Ifbyphone technology to enable all types of phones (i.e. mobile, VoIP or rotary) to connect via the Web and enables inbound, outbound and click-to-call telephone applications with integrated interactive voice response dialogs.
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April 6, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending April 6, 2008.
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March 29, 2008
The adoption of Twitter, which I covered previously a number of times , appears to be acceleratingly since March 6th, as I have seen my followers double in that three week period. My friend Gary Vaynerchuk recently started to do a daily "thoughts on life" video podcast and gave his thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook...kinda. So in response to his video I wanted to make a quick SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode 18 with my thoughts on Twitter (mainly) as well as a few comments about Facebook.
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March 26, 2008
Finding the best place to eat, get a haircut or buy groceries in your local neighborhood can sometimes be a daunting task using the Web. While there are some sites like Yelp that lend a helping hand they don't cover everything you might be looking for and they certainly do not have all of your friends recommendations.
Loladax, a Washington, DC based startup, which just officially launched today is looking to offer prioritized search based on recommendations on Facebook friends. Loladex, founded by Laurence Hooper and Dan Goodman both formerly of AOL, is looking to offer true word of mouth by creating a compelling local search engine experience for just about anything in your area.
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March 20, 2008
I have been to a number of industry events and I don't know how many times I either run out of cards are find myself cardless but technology has made it a lot easier to connect. LinkedIn recently joined Facebook and a number of other sites that have created iPhone experiences which makes it pretty easy to contact people and connect immediately thus online identity has replaced one of the features of offline identity - the business card.
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March 19, 2008
Microblogging has made it easy to share but with a number of services available one can get overloaded with options making it difficult to keep them all updating the time. Rather than have to stick to one service you can post to a number of services at one time with the help of Ping.fm. Other services like socialthing! and HelloTxt offer similar functionality but I thought it was worth mentioning yet another service as we all look for the ultimate one stop shop for managing all our microblogging needs at once.
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March 18, 2008
As reported on TechCrunch earlier this week, Facebook is working on a chat functionality. They held a press conference today and TechCrunch recorded this exclusive video demo of Facebook Chat. The presenter in the video is Peter Deng, the product manager for Facebook Chat, who made it clear that this is a preliminary version of the product. Facebook Chat appears to be something that available when you are on Facebook with the ability to turn it on and off.
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March 16, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 16, 2008.
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March 9, 2008
Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed today at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. This is the second time I have seen Mark Zuckerberg speak in person as the first I recorded at TechCrunch40. Unfortunately, this time though I am press I was not able to get a seat in the main room where Mark spoke. Bummer. Sarah Lacey the author of a Business Week cover article as well as a book on Mark Zuckerberg interviewed Mark.
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March 4, 2008
YourTrumanShow, the personal video diaries startup, that launched, VideoMap, a video discovery widget at the DEMO Fall 2007 Conference has now released it to the Facebook world. VideoMap lets users see who links to them and who they link to as well as the video content they have collected. As user watch videos, a graphically rich visual map tracks the path of discovery, relationships, and content. VideoMaps also leverages YourTrumanShow's recommendation algorithms to help cultivate social interactions.
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February 24, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending February 24, 2008.
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February 5, 2008
I use Flickr just about everyday to store and manage my photos as well as to keep track of what my contacts are doing by photo. I was happy to see Flickr add photo editing tools by integrating with Picnik online photo editing software. On thing urks me about the integration though is the fact that as a Flickr premium user I still DO NOT have full access to all of Picnik's offerings from within Flickr itself. I really feel that as part of the partnership and integration Flickr should have reconciled which users are premium Flickr users and done a revenue share to enable them full access to Picnik. That said, I have been on the lookout for an comparable alternative to Picnik for more sophisticated photo edits and updates to save me the hassle of firing up Adobe Photoshop. I recently found flauntR, a free online photo editing site, which offers a number of similar photo editing features.
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February 3, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending February 3, 2008.
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January 27, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending January 27, 2008.
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January 20, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending January 20, 2008.
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January 17, 2008
Are you a Scrabble fan? Scrabble, the popular word game created by Hasbro and Mattel has been the topic of debate recently as an online alternative was created to operate as a Facebook application called Scrabulous. Scrabulous was created by Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla within the last six months already has over 600,000 active daily users. Amazing! According to an ABC News report, Hasbro is outraged about the creation of the copycat game and as AllFacebook reports they are trying to force Facebook to remove it. Am I missing something?
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January 13, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending January 13, 2008.
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December 30, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 30, 2007.
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December 17, 2007
I have too many books and not enough time to read them all. However, you might be on the other side of the fence with this one and looking for new books to read. 22books might be a place to look as it offers users a place to create, find and share book lists.
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December 2, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending December 1, 2007.
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November 18, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending November 18, 2007.
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November 10, 2007
With the Facebook news wall we all get an aggregation of friend updates to keep tabs on whats going on in our social circle. Wouldn't be great if you could just watch your Facebook news wall just like the evening broadcast news on television? Well now you can, sort of...
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November 2, 2007
This week the Web development community has been buzzing as details were released about an new widget API called Google OpenSocial. Google officially launched OpenSocial and provided this video to further explain its actions. I have been trying to get my head around what it really means and would like to open it up to my readers for input via a Somewhat Frank poll to get your take on OpenSocial.
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October 29, 2007
Facebook has been blanketing the headlines for months now and it has heated up more with Mark Zuckerberg speaking at TechCrunch40 and the Web 2.0 Summit in the past few weeks. Mark recently hinted at a advertising platform launch coming soon and my friend Nick O'Neill of at AllFacebook has been reporting on for the past few weeks. Apparently the new platform will not just focus on the Facebook space but will also go outside and place advertisements on the Web which will place it in direct competition with Google Adsense and other similar services.
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October 28, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 28, 2007.
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October 21, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 21, 2007.
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October 20, 2007
The Web 2.0 Summit took place this past week in San Francisco. While I participated in a few AOL sposonorship events, I also participated in Lobbycon. In my short time to observe it appeared the Web 2.0 Summit seemed to be more of a "suit" fest while the Web 2.0 Expo, this past April, seemed to be much more approachable. Nonetheless, Mark Zuckerberg spoke with John Battelle at the conference similar to how he spoke with Mike Arrington a few weeks before.
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October 14, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 14, 2007.
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October 7, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending October 7, 2007.
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October 6, 2007
Facebook usage has been on the rise and with it, a frenzy to create Facebook applications. What's all the frenzy about? Dave McClure, an advisor for several startups and non-profits, has created a new course titled, Creating Engaging Facebook Apps at Stanford University to help answer that very question. For the course, Matt Monohan has created a video to explain why Facebook works for him.
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September 30, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 30, 2007.
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September 24, 2007
YourTrumanShow, the personal video diaries startup, has just launched, VideoMap, video discovery widget at the DEMO Conference in San Diego, California. Catering to artists and online personalities, YourTrumanShow, looks to cultivate discovery within its network by exposing its interesting video linking feature to other social network and the Web via VideoMap.
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September 22, 2007
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, sat down with TechCrunch c0-editor Mike Arrington at the TechCrunch40 conference for a fireside chat. Mark takes about opening up the Facebook platform and announced the FBFUND is a $10 million grant fund from Facebook aimed at helping application developers. The grants range from $25K to $250K and Facebook takes no equity or debt.
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September 16, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 16, 2007.
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September 9, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 9, 2007.
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September 2, 2007
Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending September 2, 2007.
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August 27, 2007
Shareaholic makes it easy to submit the web page you are currently viewing in a Firefox browser to Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook, Google bookmarks, Magnolia, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Twitter.
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August 22, 2007
I have discussed technology and Internet addiction before, but is it possible to be addicted to Facebook? Take this quick Somewhat Frank Poll and let me know what you think. Are you addicted to Facebook?
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August 5, 2007
Photo of the Week: Barry Bonds hit home run 755 last night in a game vs. San Diego tying Hank Aaron for most career home runs in Major League history. John Feeley was in attendance and captured history with his zoom lens in this shot (shown above). Somewhat Frank Weekly...
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July 22, 2007
Photo of the Week: I took a trip to Sausalito yesterday and took in some gorgeous sites including this little red sailboat in the Bay. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.22.07 Google Maps: A users guide to personalization LifeHacker offers a guide to personalizing Google Maps. The Impact of Facebook's Platform...
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July 15, 2007
Photo of the week: These green frog cupcakes were spotted and then were quickly devoured at the most recent TECH cocktail in Chicago. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.15.07 AOL Top Web Site Under New Ranking Nielsen/NetRatings will begin reporting total sessions and total time spent on a site in order...
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July 8, 2007
Photo of the Week: American Flag on Parade at Dewey Beach for the 'Running of the Bulls' taken by Matt Hirschmann. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 07.08.07 Facebook Sees Flood of New Traffic from Teenagers and Adults In the months prior to allowing open registration, Facebook.com’s traffic hovered at approximately 14...
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July 2, 2007
Do you want to borrow money for less? Join the club, the Lending Club, that is. Lending Club is an online lending community where people borrow and lend money among each other. By working together Lending Club, members can borrow money at a better rate than they would get from...
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June 24, 2007
Photo of the Week: I checked out the view from Vista Point and snapped this photo while in San Francisco this weekend. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.24.07 LinkedIn Opening Platform AllFacebook.com reports a rumor that LinkedIn is considering opening their platform to developers. The role of humans in Google search...
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June 1, 2007
Widgets are hot. Widgets are sexy. Widgets, widgets, widgets. I previously have covered the widget craze but widgets now have a few new promoters. With the Facebook open platform announcement last week there have been lots of new widgets and applications added to Facebook each day. Personally, I have already...
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May 27, 2007
Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by James Yu at Pier 38 in San Francisco on Thursday night (May 24, 2007) as part of the NewTeeVee and MetaCafe Pier Screenings. Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.27.07 Facebook Moving to An Open Platform Strategy Facebook has announced a new strategy...
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May 8, 2007
Are you looking for music videos on YouTube? You are not alone. Middio launched publicly on Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2007) to help users find all the music they are looking for on YouTube. Middio indexes YouTube music videos so that you can search by song or artist and...
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March 7, 2007