SOMEWHAT FRANK

Intel Sponsors "Geeks" The New Rock Stars

Intel launched an new video campaign yesterday (above) that celebrates what makes Intel different than a lot of other companies. Intel supports culture, personality, heroes and this new video titled "Sponsors of Tomorrow," exemplifies this point. As an Intel Insider brand ambassador, I am pleased to say that Intel has helped support my geekdom, curiosity and general pursuit of happiness. Intel has helped change the world for over 40 years and knowing what Intel is working on in the areas of health, environment and science I am sure that it will continue.

iList: A Social Classified Ad Marketplace

iList is aiming to be like the popular online classified site craigslist but with a social twist. It offers users the ability to post an item on iList that look better than your typical craigslist listing but that is not all. iList's strength lies in the ability to easily share that listing with a number of social sites like Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. This distribution strategy is one that craigslist currently does not employ as it acts as a destination waiting for people to sift through and find items. iList's distribution approach could help it to grow virally though existing social communication channels.

Video: Clearspring Widget Startup Explained

Clearspring, a Virginia-based startup, offers a number of widget solutions for publishers and advertisers. I got to catchup with Clearspring Community Manager and genunine good guy, Justin Thorp as he "tells all" about the widget making startup. Is Clearspring soon to be acquired? Watch the video and maybe you will find out.

Don't forget to subscribe to the SOMEWHAT FRANK TV video podcast on iTunes of via your favorite feed reader.

CNet and Ars Technica Acquired, Life Streaming Architecture, Crowdsourcing Workflow, Ad Design Tactics & A Flickr Case Study

Photo of the Week: This is a photo of the TECH cocktail RACING Pine Wood Derby car which took 6th place out of 41 at this years Threadless.com Threadle Manss this past weekend.

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits: 05.18.2008

Docstoc Gets $3.25 Million More In Funding

Docstoc, the online document community offering, which I have covered a number of times, has raised $3.25 million in a series B round of funding. I got a call from founder and CEO Jason Nazar yesterday to inform me of the news. Congratulations to Docstoc on getting some additional funding and good luck on building the product out in the next couple years.

Additionally, Docstoc announced the creation of the Content Partnership Program which allows content partners to generate revenue off of a content they are sharing through Docstoc. This should help motivate more people to add and share documents on Docstoc.

Triggit Affiliate Links Toolbar For Publishers

Are you looking for another way to monetize your blog or website? While there are a number of options Triggit, a San Francisco meta-ad network startup, offers a toolbar which can be used to connect your content to monetization opportunities. It offers a simple tool for webmasters to add affiliate links to content.

AOL Launches the Technology Network

AOL as they have just relaunched Switched as the hub for the newly created AOL Technology Network. The network will bring together content from Engadget, Switched, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), Download Squad, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD to form the second largest technology news publisher online.

The network helps to combine all the great technology blogs offered by AOL and Weblogs, Inc which was acquired by AOL in 2005 and should make for a compelling advertising offering for Platform-A, AOL's advertising conglomerate.

Advertising.com Launches PubAccess Self-Service Ad Program For Publishers

Smaller publishers like myself currently do not have lots of options when it comes to CPM ad solutions. Quite frankly the options are slim pickings and there are lots of publishers just like me. Platform A's Advertising.com, an AOL owned company, looks to change all that by today launching PubAccess a web-based self-service advertising program for smaller publishers. PubAccess will give small publishers access to the Advertising.com ad network.

PubAccess gives publishers control over their ad inventory within the Advertising.com display network and allows them to block advertisers and categories, pull tags and view activity reports. PubAccess has a minimum requirement of 500,000 impressions per month for the CPM program and there is no minimum for the affiliate program. PubAccess will debut at the ad:tech conference next week in San Francisco.

Voxant: Free Licensed Content For Publishers

If content is truly king then Voxant is in the right business. Voxant Newsroom looks to help distribute and promote content from licensed content sources for free. Voxant offers publishers a place to find and embed licensed video, text, and photos from over two hundred news sources from a variety of providers. Voxant places advertising in the its embeddable content to monetize the content making it possible to keep the content available for free to publishers.

Thank You SOMEWHAT FRANK Sponsors

Thank you for SOMEWHAT FRANK sponsors. To be totally Frank with you, I love to blog and I am humbled by the support. Thank you for helping to make it possible for me to do what I love to do everyday. The goal of SOMEWHAT FRANK is to provide candid and timely perspectives on how Web 2.0 and technology fuse into everyday life which offers a great opportunity for sponsors to appear along side some great related content. So thank you so very much to the following sponsors:

ACS - ACS is a top-tier consulting firm that specializes in strategy, marketing, and implementation for companies trying to grow business online and offline. ACS has worked with over 100 companies on anything from basic strategy to full-blow marketing and is always looking for companies that are trying to do things right and take their business to the next level.

Wine Library TV - Wine Library TV (WLTV) a daily video show powered by Gary Vaynerchuk is changing the wine world. Gary is a wine 2.0 expert who has reinvented the concept of wine tasting for a new generation. In addition to encouraging straightforward wine tasting, Gary educates viewers about the effects of regional factors (soil, sun, wind) on wine flavors, and how to buy wine. Debunking myths (red vs. white, big name brands vs. independent growers, the pitfalls of wine ratings, etc.) is another ongoing theme of the show. Wine Library TV airs 5 days a week, with new episodes appearing between 4:00 and 6:00 Eastern Standard Time.

myAOL - myAOL is an Ajax, personalized homepage which offers applications and content to be your dashboard for the Web. It offers AOL content and applications (i.e. Truveo Video Search, AOL Mail, AOL Video, AOL Music, TMZ.com, etc.) in addition to 3rd party applications (i.e. Twitter, eBay, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and many more).  It also offers a full-fledged feed reader and bookmarking product to save all your favorites in one place for easy access from the Web. Finally, Mgnet offers content recommendations as a way to help find content that might interest you.

If you are not listed above and want to support SOMEWHAT FRANK and would like to sponsor please check out the SOMEWHAT FRANK sponsorship options.

If you're a startup, have a rad product or service or a web technology enthusiast and have a topic you want to explore on SOMEWHAT FRANK or our fairly new video podcast SOMEWHAT FRANK TV, please contact me at frank AT somewhatfrank DOT com .

CBS Launches Rev-Share Ad Network

CBS Television stations today announced the launch of the CBS Local Ad Network as it looks to get into the advertising and widget distribution game by connecting with local bloggers and social media sites on the Web.

At first glance, I thought CBS was looking to incorporate blogs and other social media content into the local CBS news sites but after reading on that is not the case at all, it turns out CBS is just leveraging bloggers looking to generate some revenue on their blog or social media content. Network participants can place what CBS is calling a widget (with a huge skyscraper ad unit) on their sites and in return receive a rev-share. The widget pushes links to only CBS content rather than tying in social media content like I thought it should. Nothing new here. It might be the right program for bloggers or social media content producers looking for a way to monetize and not sell ads though I have no idea what the rev-share looks like and it would be worth a look before jumping in and giving CBS ad impressions.

Polyvore: Flickr For The Fashion Shopper

Are you a fashion trend setter? If so, you might want to check out Polyvore. Polyvore is a social fashion site where users can create arrange outfits or inspiration boards to share where you and others can potentially buy the included items. Polyvore enables users to drag and drop clothing items or snag items from the Web to create new outfits which are then tied into various shopping sites and could offer some interesting revenue sharing options. Launched in February 2007 and backed by Benchmark Capital, Polyvore recently hit the one million outfit mark.

GenieTown Service Marketplace Launches

Looking for a little help on your next home project? If you live in the San Francisco area you might be in luck as GenieTown, a Palo Alto-based startup founded by a group of Stanford entrepreneurs, officially opened to the world today. GenieTown offers a platform for anyone looking for local services to either browse through a broad range of specific service providers or post a job request and invite qualified responses. GenieTown creates an eBay-like marketplace for services.

XING Reports 5 Million Members

XING, the social network for professionals which is extremely popular in Europe, has just published some numbers showing off its continued growth. According to a recent release, XING, has 5 million members registered which has contributed to reached revenues of 19.61 million euros or approximately 28.74 million U.S. dollars. XING founder and CEO, Lars Hinrichs had this to say:

"We delivered outstanding results for the 2007 fiscal year, and have already demonstrated this year that XING is not only an active consolidator in the European business networking market, but is also striding ahead with organic growth and has shown incredible innovation."

Some of this could be attributed to additional revenue streams that were created by expanding XING's e-Commerce and Advertising.

AOL Partners With IAC's CitySearch

AOL has announced a strategic content and advertising partnership with CitySearch an IAC owned company. The agreement enables AOL CityGuide, AOL Local Search and MapQuest to leverage CitySearch's local content and in return CitySearch gains access to AOL's distribution. CitySearch CEO, Jay Herratti had this to say:

"This partnership is a classic ‘win-win’ for both companies; Citysearch’s content is great for AOL’s audience, AOL’s reach is great for Citysearch’s advertisers who will gain access to qualified local customers and the ability to deliver a consistent message across the web, and both companies will benefit from incremental revenue."

Sounds like a simple enough deal to me. AOL will help get more ad units in front of Citysearch users and CitySearch will provide its local city reviews and information to AOL - makes sense.