SOMEWHAT FRANK

iPhone Mania Captured On Video

Bub.blicio.us was in Palo Alto, California, yesterday covering the release of the iPhone at Steve Jobs' favorite Apple Store. This short video (above) highlights the day's events with interviews of Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk. Interestingly, after all the iPhone mania settled down (around 7pm PST) I casually got in line for 1 minute and was able to purchase an iPhone without having to camp out in a lawn chair all night and day.

Poll: Are you getting an iPhone?

The iPhone frenzy has been brewing all week across the country. I just was curious to see how many Somewhat Frank readers were going to get an iPhone immediately. Take this poll and let me know.

Watch Coders Like A Sporting Event

If action packed coding is your thing, you might want to check out the Top Coder Challenge today. I did a call-out previously for this event. You can actually watch coding just like a sporting event via Webcast live from the Mirage Resort in Las Vegas, coverage will begin Friday, June 29 at 4:00 PM EDT on the AOL Developer Network, dev.aol.com.

So grab some brews, fire up the grill and make a Friday afternoon out of TopCoder Open as they compete for $25,000.

If you are solid front-end web JavaScript developers looking to work on a very cool and high visibility web 2.0 product please shoot me an email with your resume at: frank [at] frankgruber5 dot com.

Somewhat Frank Turns 2; TECH cocktail Turning 1

Birthday logo thanks to Orli Yakuel.

Somewhat Frank is embarking on the terrible two's - that's right, today is Somewhat Frank's blog birthday! I have to say the last two years have flown by with thousands of article and comments being generated on Somewhat Frank. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the feed and read or interacted with the site. Also, thank you to the special contributors and supporters. It is not easy to work full-time and keep the fresh content flowing everyday - but I my readers keep me motivated and I thank you for it. I hope to continue to bring a somewhat frank perspective in the coming years.

In addition to a blog birthday, TECH cocktail, a social mixer that I co-founded with Eric Olson, will be celebrating it's one year anniversary on July 12, 2007 at TECH cocktail 5 in Chicago. We started with just dream of uniting and amplifying the local tech scene in undeserved areas and feel we have so far exceeded expectations. We really have had a lot of fun doing it too. We have held 4 Chicago large events and 1 in DC, and we have plans to do more...look for one in Boston coming soon.

RSVP HERE for TECH cocktail 5 in Chicago today. If you are interested in sponsoring or demoing at the event please email me at: frank [at] techcocktail dot com. We hope to see you there.

Xcavator.net For Stock Image Recognition & Color Search

Are you looking for a solid image search? xcavator might be able to help as it offers a couple of interesting image search options. Unlike other image search engines, xcavator enables users to search stock images by selecting an image color, tag or keyword.

Using an innovative color selector users can find images with a similar dominant color. The color selected can then be filtered by tag or keyword. Users can search among royalty free and licensed images. Additionally, xcavator uses image recognition technology which was created by CogniSign to allow users to search on an uploaded image. Check out the video tour here - a screen-shot of a simple color search is shown below.

Is Spock Spamming My Contacts?

Spock, a people search engine, that I previously highlighted has been making some slightly questionable moves to grow its user base. Though I am a fan of Spock, I have been informed by a number of my friends and contacts that they were contacted by Spock on my behalf. An example email is below:

Hi Jane Doe,

Frank has invited you to Spock.

Create your account by clicking here

Thanks! Jay and the Spock Team

This was news to me! While the email above looks great, I never sent anyone an email introducing Spock, nor do I recall endorsing the behavior. I assume Spoke offered some way to opt in/out of this type of push technique but I must have missed it. It reminds me of the way that Plaxo used to send emails to all your contacts about birthdays and other updates.

While Spock's auto-email behavior is not spam since it was probably something that could be turned off, I am not happy it has been reaching out to my contacts. I wish Spock would have made it more clear that it would be emailing my contacts.

LinkedIn Going Open?, Yahoo Gets New CEO, Supernova 2007 Wrap, Fox Chooses Brightcove, MyStrands Cashes In, E-Learning 101 & Human Role In Search

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
Matt Cutts talks about the role of people in Google search.

What's Wrong with Web Work?
Obvious drawbacks of web work that we don'€™t always mention.

Welcome Jerry, Yahoo'€™s new CEO!
Bradley Horowitz gives his perspective on the new Yahoo CEO.

Chumby: One Year Later
It was announced a year ago at Foo camp, and the company gave out about 500 of the first generation devices. What is Chumby doing a year later?

What happened at Supernova? (for those of us who weren'€™t there)
Jeremiah Owyang has aggregated some of the Supernova happenings from the past week for those that might have missed it.

e-learning 2.0: All You Need To Know
An overview of e-learning 2.0, including the leading web apps and sites in this niche, and predictions for its future.

Chris Pirillo on OPML
What is OPML? The simplest explanation is that it's a bundle of RSS feeds that can be ported into and out of an RSS reader.

Best Slideshows Creator I've ever Tried
Vuvox is an online service that can enable you create personal, collaborative & emotive slideshows using your own digital media to include video, photos, music and text.

Fox Picks BrightCove For Online Video
Fox Entertainment Group have announced the selection of online video provider Brightcove as the single online distributor of Fox network television programs.

MyStrands Raises $25M in Series B Funding
MyStrands, the social recommendation music site, has raised $25 million in Series B funding.

BlogTV For Personalized Live Web TV

BlogTV is an Israel-based company that enables people to create their own live broadcast channel on the Web. Similar to UStream.tv, BlogTV empowers anyone with a webcam to create a destination channel for broadcasting live episodes.

I got a chance to sit down with BlogTV Vice President of Product & Content, Nir Ofir, at Supernova 2007 and got a live demo. While demonstrating the features of BlogTV, Nir showed its unique ability to connect two broadcasts together as co-hosts. The screen-shot (shown below) displays the live broadcast in which Nir connected us (Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo) with Jeff Pulver on PulverTV. I do not believe UStream.tv or other services offer this type of service but would love to hear if there are other services out there that do something similar.

A BlogTV channel includes live chat collaborations tools and user contributed ratings. Users can record broadcasts or stream them live with the option to embed the show into other sites and blogs. In the short demo we saw, BlogTV appeared to work well, however we did notice a bit of a delay between the two co-hosts on the show. I am not sure if that was due to the poor Internet connection at Supernova or if it was the actual application itself - it could have been attributed to a number of things.

Bottom-line: BlogTV is a platform that enables users to create live broadcast channels via a webcam with ease.

Indaba Music: Jam With A Virtual Band

Do you have dreams of being a rock star but are in need of a band?

This can be a common problem for many talented artists as they can jam like no other but don't have an official band. Indaba Music   makes it possible to create a virtual band to create music. Indaba Music is an online collaboration platform that allows artists to upload tracks, work without concern for location, and have an easy flow of information. Users can connect with others musicians to coordinate the creation of a virtual band by recording and sharing individual parts of a song to then be mixed and turned into a new song. Tracks can then be shared with the rest of the community. The Indaba Music community offers users the ability to create music sessions and then subscribe to watch the sessions as a collaborative effort to create a new mix. Check out a sample session here.

Launched by two Harvard graduates in their early twenties, Dan Zaccagnino and Matt Siegel  have continued to rollout improvements to their free offering. In April 2007, Indaba Music launched a free online production console, which allows its worldwide community of musicians and music professionals to work on tracks, edit, mix and access them from any computer in the world. In May, Indaba Music launched version 2 of the product, which included some substantial site design improvements. In addition, the (remove 'a') new production console has some major improvements, which included waveform graphics in the track views, LED level meters, adjustable volume changes over the timeline, moveable markers, and stereo mix-downs. Finally, the music player randomly plays finished session mixes in an application, which leverages Adobe Apollo.

Bottom-line: Musicians with platinum record dreams or just looking to meet others artists should give Indaba Music   a whirl to upload and mix music.

WebWare Top 100 Applications Awarded

CNet's Webware recently announced the 2007 Webware 100 which highlights 10 applications in each of 10 categories, determined by Webware readers and the fans of the sites. Some of my favorite products are listed (i.e. AIM, Facebook, FeedBurner, Flickr, LinkedIn, PhotoBucket, YouTube, yourminis, and many more). Check out the full list of winners.

Rafe Needleman offers analysis on the winners - congrats to all!

New myAOL Startpage Is Coming Soon

So you want to organize all your stuff on the web in one place? A new myAOL is coming soon. The current myAOL is solely a feed reader that offers some recommendations. The new myAOL offers a personalized homepage experience with some additional bells and whistles.

Aside from an Ajax customizable homepage with drag and drop widgets to give quick click and go access to content and applications, myAOL also offers a few additional pages as part of the first time experience. The additional pages are called Mgnet (pronounced Magnet) and Favorites. myAOL Mgnet is an image driven content discovery and recommendations engine which offers a fun new way to find new videos, images and stories on the web. myAOL Favorites, recently highlighted by TechCrunch, offers feed reader integrated with a solid bookmarking product making it easy to manage and share all your favorite feed updates and places on the Web.

I am the product manager for myAOL and I just posted the video (shown above) on the new myAOL Blog. It provides a sneak peek at the product. Check out what Mike Arrington from TechCrunch has to say about the new myAOL.

YouTube Feature Updates, Embed Joost?, Flickr Goes Global, Me.dium $15 Million, Stalker 2.0, Fat Long Tail, RSS Toolbox, Discover via Megite & Blog Or Die

Photo of the Week: Jen Consalvo recently snapped this photo titled backlight. A little sunshine is a beautiful thing and is good for the soul - this little yellow guy appears to agree.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.17.07

YouTube Remixer: Edit Videos Online At YouTube
YouTube has officially launched YouTube Remixer, a new service that allows users to edit their videos from within YouTube itself. Also, YouTube Mobile launched this week.

Discover From Megite
Megite recently launched a discover area which offers users a place to find new things via a tag cloud and other discover links.

Embedded Joost Will Change The Market
Reports that Joost is now talking to hardware vendors about embedding Joost into set-top boxes and televisions will change the market as we know it.

Me.dium Pulls $15 Million in Funding
Boulder, Colorado based Me.dium, the sidebar social network, has received $15 million in second round funding. The round of funding was led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

11 web technologies political campaigns should consider
Technology Evangelist points to 11 different technologies political campaign leads should know.

Google Reader losing feeds?
A few people complained this week that Google Reader lost their feeds. I didn't see it, did it happen to you?

CommunityNext July 14th: VIRAL... Catch the Fever!
The Next CommunityNext conference is coming up July 14th - are you signed up?

Stalking 2.0: The Websites that Track Your Every Move (Voluntarily!)
Are you letting people track you online? If so you probably have encountered one of these stalker 2.0 applications.

The Long Tail Is Getting Fatter
It wasn’t that long ago that 100,000 users was considered huge for a Web 2.0 related business. Today a small startup such as SpaceTime can gain those numbers in two weeks. 6 million users three years ago would have seemed an impossible dream, and yet it is very attainable now. This article takes a closer look.

Can You Make A Living Blogging?
Great question and I will have to answer with a resounding 'YES!!!' I have seen bloggers go from nothing to something as little as a six months to a year. It is pretty amazing. However, I have to agree with Nick, we don't all blog for the money...the real benefits of blogging are all the great friendships that come from it.

Schilling's Laws for Perfect Start(up)s
Seth Goldstein talks baseball and startups on Found+READ.

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources
Check out this comprehensive post on a number of RSS tools available on the web. You may already know but I think RSS is sexy. ;)

Flickr Goes Global
Flickr opens up its doors to a number of new languages and also there is word this week that Yahoo Photos is going to be closing its doors. I'd say this is a big week for Flickr. I have a feeling Flickr video uploads are coming very soon.

HeyCosmo Launches Free Interactive WebCam Collaboration Service

HeyCosmo, a product of Arsenal Interactive a Mountain View, California-based startup founded by Jason Im, launched into external beta yesterday to offer an interactive webcam platform with a host of collaboration tools.

I first met, HeyCosmo founder and CEO, Jason Im at Community Next in February and then hung out with him at the W Hotel in SF and got a preview of the product after the Web 2.0 Expo. In seeing the demo I could see HeyCosmo becoming extremely popular as it adds a "real" element to normal online interaction. It blends a Meeting Place or WebEx type application with the visual interactivity via a web cam. However, HeyCosmo does not appear to be positioning itself as a business application but more a fun way to sync up and have fun with friends online. With HeyCosmo you can have up to 10 live web-cam video participants and up to 50 people can listen, watch, and chat during a session. So imagine leveraging HeyCosmo to play a crazy game of poker online. You don't have to imagine too hard because HeyCosmo is already helping you to do it - check out the screen-shot below.

Since HeyCosmo is in beta it is only currently offered for use with Internet Explorer but I would expect that to change with time as HeyCosmo works out all the beta kinks. TechCrunch offers additional perspective on HeyCosmo.

Bands In Town Gets You Ready To Rock!

Are you ready to rock all summer long but don't know when you favorite bands are coming to town? Of course you could go out and search for your favorite bands sites and check each individually but now there may be an easier way. Bands In Town recently launched to help you keep better track of tour dates for your favorite bands.

Bands In Town offers the ability to pull in your favorite band information from Last.fm or you can manually save you favorite bands. Upon specifying a geographic location, Bands In Town serves up a huge tag cloud of bands that you might enjoy. Check out the screen-shot below.

Bands In Town also informs you when your favorite band is in coming back into town which saves you from having to keep track on your own. Rock on, you shouldn't miss a show again! 

Sudokular For Online Sudoku Puzzles

For the past two years my brother-in-law has been completing sudoku puzzles, something he finds challenging and entertaining, but something I know little about, until now that is. A German based start-up,  Sudokular, offers online sudoku and leverages syndication to send daily sudoku puzzles.

Sudoku is a game of logic that requires brains and concentration, and according to several anti-aging sites, wards off degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.  I’m all for warding off any kind of disease, so I was raring to get started. Sudoku has only one rule, fill in the game board so numbers 1 through 9 occur in any order only once in each row, column or box of three by three squares. This seemed simple enough, I thought.

Games are available at various difficulty levels, from easy, to standard and then hard. A game mode of either simple mode or expert mode can be selected and the game begins.
Never having attempted a sudoku puzzle, I signed up for the easy and simple mode. I also activated the in-game help, which allowed my input to be checked while the game was running.  After playing the game for 17 minutes, (a clock begins ticking as the first number is placed on the board) the board was filled, and a quick look revealed my score, based on the total number of correctly placed numerals.  I did remarkably well for a beginner.

Sudokular is successful at captivating one’s attention and can be played in place of the standard Solitare game so many use to pass time. I definitely have a new respect for all those sudoku players I’ve observed at Starbuck’s. Bravo!